[MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION]

These are lousy indoor photos - let me know if they don't suffice.

Hubs were '70.

Aaron...you tease!!!

First you are putting pics up of this great bike...and NOW...some great pics of a nice Brooks saddle.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

Thanks...needed the uplift on a rainy Wednesday Atlanta afternoon at the office!

Aaron, I can't quite tell if that's a 1950's saddle or a fairly recent one. Probably a recent one but I can't see the badge quite well enough... also, about the bag loops: are they just stamped steel, or do they have eyelets set into the holes?

I don't think the new ones have those rivets, do they?

Does this help [MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION]?

rhm -

wrt to your remarks regarding the front mech.

it has to be a first generation as it has steel pivot arms held in place with a screw.

absence of housing stop must to due to a post-works truncation.

Interesting! I wonder if done intentionally...perhaps with the drillium.

Bata Bullets

Looks like a fun project. Dig the fenders, I have the same ones.

Yes, I'm now convinced your saddle is much older than the bike. 1940s or earlier. Saddles like that, in this condition, are rather valuable.

Are you sure? The condition is great - it doesn't seem that old, or dry. I'm guessing I shouldn't use it? I was planning on riding it.

To confirm, about the saddle, the tension bolt at the nose, when viewed from the front, is kinda )(-shaped? That is, a cylinder with a round channel machined into the sides? That is unusual.

The current design, with a round headed tension bolt, was in use by the early 1950's. I don't know when the change was made, but yours is earlier, perhaps pre-war.

Saddles of that age, in that condition, are rare. PBBikes would probably ask $499 for it. But of course you can ride it, put it on that Italian bike, the one with the mismatched fenders that you ride in the rain.

Those mismatched fenders tie the room together!

Yes on shape - I'll take another photo. Now I feel awful about that white spot (mothers).

Pbbikes would ask $499 for a regular Brooks

I guess I'll remove it and either sell or display. It's hard to believe a leather saddle that old could be in this condition. Heck Brooks should buy it back as an advertisement!

Brooks may want it...but...were I in your shoes...they would not get it!

Wow...this is turning into a spectacular deal Aaron...very cool...great bike...and now a really historic, collectible, enviable saddle!

Great that a true bicycle aficionado like you has this one!

What a great find - enjoy.

Beautiful, really, really cool bike!

Congratulations and I hope you can find out more about it!

Huh! Well, that makes a lot of sense. But are we sure the thing is actually truncated? Yo Aaron! We need explicit and graphic photos of the backside of the front derailleur. It could be the cable stop is still there, and some bonehead didn't know how to route the cable.

With regard to the saddle, you really shouldn't be listening to me. You should see what [MENTION=75618]tony colegrave[/MENTION] has to say.

Thanks for the kind words everyone! Daf - I knew you'd like this one. The one negative is that this was pretty much my exact build plan for the yellow Mooney. I don't know what to do with it now. Maybe an IGH path racer

I'll send him a line and will provide better photos of the derailleur today. It never really occurred to me that the saddle was anything special. I was just looking forward to trying an older model that I hadn't come across before.

Needless to say, I do not regret picking this up (worth driving to Maryland).

Under the grime in your picture of BB is there perhaps another number preceeding 1276? From here looks like it might be a 6 or am I hallucinating. If it is definitely 1276 that is not a Holdsworthy factory S/N.

D

n


Not much that I can add. That saddle dates from somewhere between 1936 and 1950 - unless the black enamel has been overpainted on an original chrome-plated frame, in which case the date can be narrowed down to 1949-50.

here are two pictures from the velobase listing for the record first gen front mech -



if one compares these to the photo posted above it is clear that stop is no longer there -

photo nr. 3 from post nr. 2 on page one of the thread:

F687044A-C010-48C6-9B01-E5B8AE4F39B2_zpsfuns10mz.jpg Photo by aolk67 | Photobucket


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btw - good to see nicky pressed into service for inflator retention.

I got a response, but it wasn't very informative. He believes it's mid-70s and has stated it was among his earliest builds. 531. He thinks it looks lovely.

I suppose it's conceivable that he built an earlier style frame in the mid-70s outfitted with slightly older bits. Or his memory may be off (or he may have put forth minimal effort IDing it). I don't think the answer really sheds any light.

But he confirms he built it himself? Not a generic frame that he slapped his own decals onto? That's light, I think, since it's a fact you didn't have before.

The other facts are, components ca 1970 but the frame was made for a model of front derailleur whose production is "believed to have ended in about 1967." As a terminus ante quem, I don't regard that especially solid, but there it is.

We can speculate any number of ways these facts may have come about, but none of that really matters.

It's not a contracted build apparently.

I can think of ways it could have happened (guy has derailleur he likes, wants to re-use it). As you said, it doesn't really matter. I think early-mid 70s is right.

[QUOTE=KonAaron Snake;18168661 ... guy has derailleur he likes, wants to re-use it....[/QUOTE]

Yeah... so just imagine the look on his face when, after commissioning a custom frame to reuse that derailleur, he busted the cable stop off it!

Get yourself one of these and don't look back:

Origin8 Alloy Single Cable Stop 28 6mm Silver Each | eBay