I suspect that the reference to the DSturmey shifter crept in by mistake - there's no Sturmey hub on this machine, but a BSA Unit hub (with integral f reewheel, similar to the Bayliss Wiley, Cyclo and other similar hubs). The gear lver, on the down tube, is the Oppy lever, which was also used for th e Cyclo Ace gear.
Maybe the vendor cut, pasted and edited the description for another of his machines, since, as you say, the mudguards don't have spear points.
The levers are ones marketed by Constrictor as "Conloy", and are the ones t hey catalogued with the Conloy brake. The shape of brake levers back in th e 30's, even for dropped bars, varied more than more recent ones, and it wa sn't unusual for them to stick out like that, especially with some of the m ore exotic handlebar bends. I believe that the brakes and levers were made in France.
Like Tabucchi and some other English racing cycle accessory companies, Cons trictor imported accessories from the Continent, and sold them under their own brand names. Tabucchi sold FB hubs under their own brand name of "Ambr a Superga" in the 1930's, for eaxmple, and Constrictor added "Conloy" to th eir catalogue description of the then-new Stronglight aluminium cotterless cranks when they marketed them in the latter half of the 1930's.
Neil Foddering
Weymouth, Dorset, England
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:58:33 -0800
> From: mhoffman0@snet.net
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: [CR]CR]RE: 1938 B.S.A Opperman Gold Special Model 985 T Sold on
>
> It was (is) an interesting bike, for sure. A couple of things puzzled me
, however. It says it had Sturmey Shifter on the top tube. I found it har
d to make that out. And then, what is the rear hub? Didn't look like one
I was familiar with. (Not that I'm an SA expert, but I'm not completely ign
orant about them, either). Maybe someone can chime in about this. (The hub
, not my knowledge.)
>
> Also, it says it has a spear point tip on the mudguards, but that looks
one-piece to me.
>
> Another thing that always made me scratch my head are brake levers suc
h as the ones on this bike. Were those style simply "tourist" levers put o
nto dropped bars? They always seem like they would be very hard to reach.
Enlightenment sought.
>
> Mark Hoffman
> New Britain, CT
> USA