[CR] E A BOULT frame lugs and brake levers

(Example: Framebuilders:Dario Pegoretti)

Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 13:22:03 -0700
From: <norris.lockley@yahoo.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR] E A BOULT frame lugs and brake levers


Well Done, Peter,  you have turned up with another British gem of a frame !

E A Boults were very much admired in the 50s and 60s for their quality of building and the rare unusual touches wwith the lug-work and seat-stay top-eyes.

Your frame is obviously somewhere up at the top of the model range, with it's nicely tweaked lugs. The lugs are actually Oscar Egg Super Champion model SC 4 or 6..a rather rare model. The arrow-type pieces have been added on probably before the lugs were brazed into the frame. Bob Jackson in his JRJ days ie in the 1950s did something slightly similar with the same lug-set.

When Ernie Witcomb left the army in the late 1940s and decided to set up a bike business he decided to buy out the E A Boult name...and continued to build in that name for a few years..and he also built similar frames for Henry Burton, a cycle shop in Stafford up near the Potteries..a company that is still on the go...These too always used Oscar Egg lugs and had very unusual and interesting top-eyes. Very nice frames and very under-rated.

I have a couple of E A Boults and spoke to Ernie about them some months ago.. Although he must be getting on for ninety, he is very bright and alert..and still worked at least a couple of days a week. I reminded him that he used to keep his  E A Boult transfers in a small cabinet on a shelf behind the shop counter!

Your brake-levers appear to be the loosely named Bartali levers..and may have the name Roi des Grimpeurs stamped on them. Very rare too!

Hope this bit of information will help you. If you get around to ordering some transfers, please get me two sets.... as just at the moment I am lost in the middle of France..and not able to do much in the way of renovating cycles.

Norris Lockley, Thauvenay-en-Sancerrois, France