[CR]Unidentified 1961(?) British Frame

(Example: Framebuilders:Doug Fattic)

Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:11:19 -0800
From: "Norris Lockley" <norris.lockley@yahoo.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR]Unidentified 1961(?) British Frame


 The unidentified frame is definitely British, and from the 1960s, but is is not, unfortunately a rare bird in the sense of being either Reynolds or Accles and Pollock. The frame is very likely to be one made by the well-es tablished company Elswick-Hopper, from Brigg in Lincolnshire.

The company did make some top-of-the-range models, after a fashion, as we s ay in Yorkshire, but this is not one of them..although when built-up it wou ld look very continental.

I have an almost identical frame hanging from a nail in my workshop..where is has been for all of twenty years. The only differences between the two a re that mine is still sports its original paintwork, has a more decorative bracket shell and a slightly different fork crown.

My frame is painted in appliance white with a fire-engine red panel on the down tube. The panel carried the name TORINO - the name of the Elswick-Hopp er model. The headbadge is an embossed brassed aluminium affair, bearing th e Elswick name.

The lugs and the bracket shell are all from the Davis Components company. T he same lug-set can be found with interesting windows pressed out of the ba sic shape, and I have often wondered whether they formed the starting point for the Gothic-style lugs of the Macleans Apollo frame.

The drop-outs are an interesting shape...perhaps an Elswick patent. They ar e simply pressed from mild-steel sheet, but I have not come across them on any other frame.

Norris Lockley...from an extremely wet Settle, UK