Hercules - trying to determine its age!
 

Hi - Just wondering if anyone would be able to help me to date this bike?

The stickers on it say Nottingham, another said "H-20 AW" and another said "UK reg. design no 931.741"

looking elsewhere there are other Hercules bikes 931.741 which are folding - but I am pretty sure this does not fold!

Any help would be appreciated, I'm just curious really!

(I'd ask for help with a valuation but given that I've already paid for it I'm a bit too worried to! )

Thanks :)

That's the non-folding version of the Raleigh Twenty. They were made from the mid/late 60's through the late 70's or later. One of Raleigh's most popular models, sold under a number of different marques (including, obviously, Hercules).

The 3-speed hub is marked with a coded date, which takes the form of two digits followed by a space then another one or two digits. These tell you when the hub was made. You'll find the words "STURMEY ARCHER" and "AW" and then these numbers. So if you have 73 8 your hub was made in August 1973. The rest of the parts of the bike would date to approximately the same time, and it all came together a little later.

Looking at your photo, 1973 won't be far off. Yours is a beautiful specimen, and could easily bring a couple hundred dollars around here.

Hard to guess, but somewhere between 1968 and 1974 would be my guess. I believe that is the year range for that bike, I believe it will run closer to 1968 than the 1974 date based on the painted fenders. Those seemed to have been used on the earlier models, with them switching to chrome later on.

Aaron :)

Hey, so the hub says "74 3" but the frame says NE4022454 (Nottingham fortnight 5 1974, so february? according to this site: http://raleightwenty.webs.com/history.htm knowing its name makes searching the web easier! )

So it was probably completely together about mid 1974 then?

Thank you :D

(and I paid £45 for it, without the basket (which I will soon paint white) at a local shop!)

Yeah, mid-1974 is a good guess from that info.

You did very well! Those bikes were very fashionable once. Now maybe less so... but you win either way!

Interesting...the Hercules must have used the painted fenders a lot longer than the Raleigh stuff did.

Aaron :)

I just got the folding version the other day, interesting little bikes, it even had the pump and a little spring so that when you fold it the forks softly touch other half