Sign of low quality? Does one see the top of the seat stay, the circle. Any comments?

And has anyone ever seen these kinds of seat clusters on any brands? Thanks. Basically, it's a re-badged bike and that's why I'm curious. Otherwise, the bike doesn't seem that bad though of course, it would not be anything beyond entry-level I would think.

Thanks for any comments or ideas.

I'll add in, this bike has a cottered crank, it's not American made. It is British-made in this vein. It says so on the bike.

Looks like a lower end cluster to me, but is that round thing on both sides?

Yes, it is on both sides.

Yep. Looks "more than pretty" low-end.

If I had to guess, that bump is some type of dowel. Seat stay has a hole it it and the lug might also. The bump could be part of the lug. Either way, the seat stay is mounted onto the dowel/bump and then some type of adhesion takes place.

It almost looks like some bubbling of the paint on the right side. Does that area flake off if touched with a knife blade?

I haven't seen bumps like that before. I'm wondering if there are pins that either helped orient the seatstays during building, or perhaps were designed to strengthen them. About what seypat said.

So a bit of ornamentation? Cute!

I concur, it's a pin for attaching the stays to the seat lug. A similar process was used of some 1950s CCM models.

^^^ Pin

Well it also looks cute.

The lugs are almost CCM-ish. Thanks for all of the help.

Seat lugs were often made with a boss where the stay attached. I've seen this on Brampton lugs of the late 1930's, and I think also some 1930's Raleighs.

For what it's worth, these bikes, on which I've seen this, were not low quality frames.

What does the inside of the seat tube look like in the areas where the pins are?

Chater Lea seat lugs apparently included stay caps attached in this way, but it doesn't appear to have been unusual.

It's a feature of the British "Vindec" brand - they also made motorcycles back in the day. Not particularly low end. I used to have a Vindec Clubman frame with these rivet heads on the seat stay eyes - a really comfortable fast touring bike. Sorry no photos.