Originally Posted by
SirMike1983
Replacement forks were available in the buyer's pattern of choice out of the big spares book. The paint and condition are usually good indicators of a replacement fork. The issue usually is the fork is much later, doesn't match, and there's some kind of damage to the frame as well. The fork's condition on this one matches the bike well enough that it is a non-issue.
I'll look back at my pictures of post-war Raleigh roadsters I've owned. I know that my '78 has the cut-in type brazed fork ends. If I recall rightly, the '63 export model had the old-style plug braze-ins. Whatever the Humber fork is, it's an older style of fork than either of those.
I cannot find a bike exactly like this one in any catalog. Could be a UK model or an odd export model that someone brought in. Given the construction issues, weird features, and lack of a reflector, I do wonder if it was an export model to somewhere and someone brought it into the US as a one-off.
That lines up with my '79/80 Rudge, which also has them cut in. The '54 DL-5 has pressed ends.
The Humber fork is an odd duck to pin down as it's not Raleigh pattern, but it is pretty much the same as any Raleigh-built slack-angle rod brake fork with the typical "generic" crown not associated with any other brand.* It's a much wider and more impressive casting than the later (and narrower) variants of the same design from the 1960's, but it's essentially the 1930s/40s version of that "one size fits all except Rudge, Humber, and Raleigh" crown.
Speaking of which, which big spares book are you referencing? There's no such crown in the 1950-53 (anyone have an accurate date on this?) parts catalog - granted, it's a lot later than this bike, but the secondary-brand crown is strangely absent:
The 1949-or-54 parts catalog ("Spare Parts List for Raleigh Rudge and Humber Bicycles, Workshop Tools") also doesn't show the same Humber model numbers as either of the actual bike catalogs.
As for the bike itself, there isn't a single catalog that shows one of these minus reflector, with this fork, or most models of this period without the quadrant shifter - though I
highly suspect the photos by which the airbrushed tracings were created from were not strictly redone year to year. There are some clear cases of this in the 1940's-1950's Raleigh catalogs; the base photo is the same and only the airbrushing differs. In other words, some attempts were made to create differentiation, but it wasn't always accurate.
At any rate, the closest match in two catalogs spanning the possible manufacture of this bike remains the Cob Tourist with the optional 8V Dynohub. If it wasn't for the fork, the shifter and reflector would be less of a head scratcher. It
should be Nottingham production by virtue of the "Made in England" script, so I'd venture to say UK/CA/EU/US is probably the extent of the markets it could have been for. Keep in mind though, at this point in Raleigh's history time, very little differed between the Canadian and US models - the 1950 US export catalog and one Canadian export catalog I have here from a similar vintage indicate that the range was simply
reduced for export during this era, rather than specific models made per region.
-Kurt
*Side note: The only time I've ever seen the reverse is on my Rudge. The crown is indisputably a Raleigh pattern locking crown on a non-Raleigh product, but differentiated with a solid cover where the recessed thimble would otherwise fit. A true odd duck, but I think Raleigh had simply consolidated all locking forks into the Raleigh pattern by the late-1970s. Cheaper, and nobody probably cared about fork crowns denoting brand differentiation by that point in time.