Textbook front-end damage on a pre-1967 Paramount P12 or possibly P13. Replacement headset too; not the original.

Please advise of the serial number for future reference of its damage - I intend to document the prior damage (without bias, of course) in the Paramount registry so that nobody can try pulling the wool over future buyers about the history of this frame.

-Kurt

The buckle in the top and downtube indicate that the frame suffered a frontal crash. Ther is no other explanation for that sort of damage. Such a crash would lmost certainly have damaged the fork/steering tube, so look there.

Yeah, ive done it too. Although in my case the fork took all of it, and the frame ended up with a barely tactile bump.

Not always. Fewer than 50% of the frames that I've run across with front end damage have bent steerer tubes. The steerer tubes and/or fork blades held up; leaving the frame to absorb the impact.

I'm not suggesting it's impossible for the steerer to be bent on this Paramount, but it isn't engraved in stone either.

-Kurt

OK. If somewhat fewer than 50% of the frames with crash damage have damaged fork/steerer/head tubes, I suppose this means that the fork assembly, which is designed to absorb front-end shocks, is good at doing so, and the top/downtube part of the frame will give out (structurally) before the fork assembly when the latter is subjected to excessive shock in a front-end crash. I shouldn't have said "almost certainly," but I think we agree the fork assembly should be checked out for damage when you see this kind of frame tube buckling.

Technically (or rather, ideally), the fork is supposed to give before the frame, thereby giving the rider an opportunity to swap the fork after an accident - but that isn't always the case.

Absolutely - bent blades are just the beginning. In fact, intact fork blades usually suggest a bent steerer tube.

-Kurt

In my 12 years of shop work I'm not sure ever saw a bike with a bent TT and DT that didnt have fork damage.

I have. They're usually minor front-end ripples on bikes with ultra lightweight tubing and very sturdy forks (sloping crown fork w/SL blades and rifled Columbus steerer, for instance).

-Kurt

That combination of UL tubes with sturdy forks would do it. Another scenario would be where the impact is not on the wheel but on the bars or directly on the head tube, as in a nasty flipover, which would also lead to more dramatic damage to the "frame" of the rider himself.