Originally Posted by
berkleydriskill
Based on the fork I would assume that the frame was built late 50s early 1960s due to the sand-cast Davis fork-crown which was available in 1958-1960.
That crown was still available as late as mid-'80s, though they were starting to look a bit old-fashioned by then.. We used maybe 10-15 of them over about 5 years at the shop I worked at ('79-'84), and I have three of them at the moment. I doubt those were leftovers "in the pipeline" since 1960 – they must have been made up into the late '70s at least.
Though they look a bit massive, they are cast hollow and are actually decently light.
We would carve them into pleasing shapes, mostly by subtraction, and I never saw one crack or bend, so I think they are strong and malleable castings.
Your frame unfortunately is a bit generic, not in a bad way, just not much that would help pin down the maker or year. I tend to doubt it is Italian – they were unlikely to use a British crown, back in olden times. Might be American-made.
What are the bottom bracket threads? (Do you know how to tell or do you need help with that?)
Mark B in Seattle