Originally Posted by
mkeller234
Just a guess here. Most B17 saddles come with plain "tubular" rivets while yours is a special fancier version with the manually hammered copper rivets.
That, and the badge. The previous Brooks badge from the mid-late 1990s (don't know the exact cutoff) was an uninspired twist on the Helvetica font (or something quite near it), not the traditional Brooks font:
Prior to that, a badge was used based on the revised Sturmey-Archer font - dates from the mid-late '80s, or so - whenever it was when SA acquired Brooks. It was also one of the smallest badges they ever produced. Far as I know, this spanned all models, from B.72 to Pro (I have an example of each):
The precursors to the above:
Brooks Pros (and I assume some other models), used a narrow badge w/o "Made In England" as follows - unfortunately, the lettering on this one (whatever measly bit is left of it) is about the best I have on the three examples of this saddle that I own (two 1973 small rivet, one 1979 large rivet):
During this same time period, most other Brooks saddles featured the following badge - probably the most common too. These were produced in both plastic and steel (brass?) and used on the B.72's, B.66's, B.73's, etc.:
Plastic:
Metal:
The '60s-70s badges as above were based on Brooks' 1950's era badge - metal, and with a deep stamp pattern:
The earliest badge I know of is as follows - dates from the '30s or so. Not sure if it carried over to the '40s (probably), or if it was replaced with the '50s badge above:
Note that the current Brooks badge is similar to the steel badges from the '70s as used on the B.72/66, except they do not have the typical "Made In England" at the bottom.
-Kurt