guidogad

I've picked up this frame from the local classifieds the other day. Seller didn't know anything about it and only had it for a couple of weeks before realising it wasn't the right size.
Anyhow, the thing has me intrigued.
Under the new-ish paint seems to be a pretty old frame. It's got this strong curve low in the fork and those long seat stays that one sees on bikes from the 50s though to the early 70s maybe.
Spacing is 100/120. Looks like made for 700C wheels with short/medium reach brakes (not recessed).
No braze-ons apart from a neat support for clamp-on down-tube shifters (I have never seen one like this!) and a shift cable stop on the chain stay.
Bottom bracket in BSA; seat post 26.6; frame weight 1922g, fork 702g.
Campagnolo drop outs front and back.
Beautiful wrap around seat stays.
Frame and fork belong together with identical serial number hammered in: Z07022.
Any ideas?

juvela

-----<br /><br />seatstay plug and chainstay stop scream UK (or OZ! )<br /><br />shell &amp; crown appear BOCAMA<br /><br />no-slide pibb is distinctive and may twig someone's memory<br /><br />not quite so early as you suggest possible<br /><br />date looks late sixties to very early seventies<br /><br />serial may indicate twenty-second frame of 1970 (or 1967, as both dates plausible)<br /><br />likely eleven tube Reynolds<br /><br /><img src="https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikeforums.net-vbulletin/621x461/milremo_bocama_crowns__5350d05a9268a6a82efc152523d9012d95824915.jpg"/><br /><br />---<br />@MauriceMoss<br /><br />-----

JohnDThompson 

Looks quite British, with that wrap-over top-eye treatment of the seat stays. Falcon, perhaps?

juvela

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YIKES! forum software mangled me post

apology for difficulty to read - it were not writ lykka datta

item a non-raptor


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rando_couche

Or Holdsworth?

Bad Lag

Is this properly decoded?

Seat stay plug and chain stay stop scream UK (or OZ! )

shell & crown appear BOCAMA

no-slide pibb is distinctive and may twig someone's memory

not quite so early as you suggest possible date

looks late sixties to very early seventies serial may indicate twenty-second frame of 1970 (or 1967, as both dates plausible)

likely eleven tube Reynolds

What is a "pibb"?

Bad Lag

To me, the internal brake cable routing pushes the time frame out to more or less 1980, maybe even later.

What's odd is there are no other braze-ons that would have typically been contemporaneous with the internal routing.

The lack of shifter bosses may mean it's even more recent. Is it meant to use brifters and would have only a cable stop on the down tube??

guidogad

No internal brake cable routing here. Probably you just saw a chip in the varnish as an entry point?
I think @juvela nailed the time frame with late 60s/ early 70s. That's what I expected, too. (I just referred to a wider time frame in regards to some geometry elements.)
Falcon and Holdsworth will keep me busy checking... other ideas, maybe regarding the distinctive braze-on for the down tube shifters?

clubman 

The angle of the pic suggested internal routing to me too. It's just a shifter band clamp stop.

jdawginsc 

Late 60s, early 70s...? Maybe a Viking, though the lugwork is not as ornate. Or Mercian?

Weresquatch

Really neat frame but I really doubt it's 50s or 60s....late 70s. I very much like the wrap-over seat stays.

juvela

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Thanks so much for the decode help @Bad Lag!

Greatly appreciated.

You hit it perfectly. Likely a career for you in cryptanalysis, should you wish it.

Frame not from anyone large such as Falcon, Holdsworth, Viking or Mercian.

Revisit serial. Done by a one-at-a-time constructeur who did not do many.

Despite apparent "largeness" of serial note that each character hand struck separately.

Maker with a sense of humour enjoying a spot o' fun...

While the seven character may represent a specific calendar year it is more likely it represents the seventh year of the maker's time in the trade. The zero in front of the seven is present as the builder can envision a career of at least ten years and not so great as one hundred. Likewise there is a zero in front of the twenty-two as the builder can imagine as many as one hundred units may be produced in a given year of work. However, not so great a number as one thousand.

In addition to the serial our only other significator is the no-slide pibb. Have never seen one like this previously. It may well represent our best opportunity at an identification. If an ID is achieved it may come from an Ozzie reader who writes something such as "Oh ya, that's ol' Dick McAuliffe down to Adelaide. He had to quit in '79 due to injuries received in a traffic accident. Only ever built a few hundred."

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guidogad

I love speculating on the meaning of serial numbers.
But I’m not convinced we‘ve got a good answer yet.
The leading 0 in the numbers remains unsatisfactory.
How about: the 022nd frame of month 07 in year Z.
And the company may have been 26 years old when the frame was made.

juvela

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Don Guidissimo,

Do you participate in any Ozzie forums?

Suspect you might get a rapid ID if you post there...

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T-Mar

While I can't identify the frame, I'd place it early to mid 1970s. Campagnolo was still producing variants of the Sport derailleur in 1969 that required the mounting hole in the dropout for the B spring. Given that the dropout lacks this hole, it should be no earlier than 1970. Campagnolo redesigned the dropout to eliminate the boss for this hole by at least 1974. Still, if this was a smaller builder or one with poor stock rotation, the subject dropouts could have been used into the mid-1970s.

Nguyen Dang

My thinking is just same...

guidogad

Thanks T-Mar, that's great info.
In looking at British bikes from the time with plain lugs and wrap over seat stays I came a cross this 1969 Holdsworth Professional - just posting because it shows my drop out w/o the hole.

guidogad

I will try the Ozzie forum but still have hopes on British.
Having looked at a couple of leads that people provided, there is a certain style that can be seen at the early 70s, with wrap over seat stays, plain lugs and hardly any braze-ons. For instance the Holdsworth Professional, or the King of Mercia (with the plain lugs, see picture from the 1970 catalogue) can look very much like my bike. It's certainly not a Holdsworth (they all seemed to have a full sloping fork crown, riveted head badge, and a different serial number format). And it's probably not a Mercian either (one plus though is that the head badge is not riveted).

juvela

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head badge is something we have not asked about

expect you would have examined head tube interior for any sign of fastener holes being filled in

still think no-slide bit the most helpful clue...

a good many very knowledgeable readers have probably looked at the thread and thus far no one hath writ of recognising this feature

should your explorations reach a point where you have an identity candidate one construction detail which might be helpful is the presence/absence of pinning

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MauriceMoss

This might be nothing or it might be something, I don’t know. I’ll put it out there anyway, just in case it turns out to lead somewhere.


One marque that used this kind of serial number format was PT (Percy Thornley) Stallard.


I always thought Stallard stopped making frames sometime in the mid 60s but it turns out there were Stallard frames being sold into the late 70s, with some rebadged (maybe even imported) ones being sold under the Stallard name in the 80s.


In any case, Stallards with a “Z” prefix were the Zakopane model. The first two digits following the letter were reversed and indicated the year (early ones had only one year digit) and the remaining 3 were sequential numbers for the frames made in that year.
So, as speculated earlier in the thread, Z07022 would indicate a 22nd Zakopane frame made in 1970. Here's a number from a 1964 Zakopane (also, incidentally, in Australia and also with Campagnolo droputs):





Now, there are very few examples of Stallard frames online from what I guess you’d call the “late period.” Generally few frames had the wraparound stay treatment (I've seen one from 1978 and one from 1967) and a few a little older than 1970 that use the same fork crown, as you can see below (also, the squared off cable stop on the chainstay was common on British bikes and can be found on most Stallards):

1978 Malvern:



1967 Cotswold:



1966 Cotswold:





Unknown:




Finally, that shifter band clamp stop certainly is unique; I've never seen one like that before. Perhaps it's my eyes playing a trick on me (or it's just a bit of wishful thinking on my part), but the stop on this 1978 Malvern seems to protrude a bit...




Also, Percy’s brother Denis lived in Perth and was the distributor in Australia, so there’s a better chance of finding a Stallard in Australia than maybe in the US.


One cool thing about the Stallards is that all the build slips still exist and you can have a frame number verified (apparently there’s a small fee) by contacting the Wolverhampton City Archives.


Again, maybe I’m way off on this (as I have few reference points), but who knows.

guidogad

Wow. I'll eat my hat if this isn't the jackpot!!!
Btw, found the frame in Perth (where I live).
I'll have the frame confirmed if possible and will report back of course.
Many many thanks!

juvela

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The man's powers are positively siddhic.


Positively siddhic I tell you!


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guidogad

The Wolverhampton archive has confirmed that my frame is a PT Stallard, made 1970 for export to Percy's brother in Perth, Australia, as a frame set only.
Original colour was "Post Office Red" with white head and panels, size 21 1/2, 531DB tubing.
Bingo. Off to order some decals...

MauriceMoss

It's always great to get a confirmation when records are available. Thanks for contacting the archives.
Now, we just need lots of pics once you're done building up this beauty!