Kevin did well to spot this 1950 J F WILSON road frame on Ebay - Item 160338397679, as it epitomises the best in British massed-start racing frmes of that era
James Frederick Wilson , a very accomplished racing cyclist, started the business in City Road Sheffield in South Yorkshire - England's steel city at that time - in 1948 and it is still there to this day...and it still supports a very active racing team both on road and track, as it has done throughout the decades. Check its website on Google..and you will find some very interesting steel frames for sale..no aluminium or carbon "crap" I think was the word that Nigel Wilson, the present owner, used. And Nigel, taught by his father, is still building to this day. And there's some nostalgic stuff about the shop as well...
In the 50s and 60s, J F WILSON frames were, to racing cyclists of the city of Sheffield and the surrounding industrial towns, what JRJ (Bob Jacksons) Woodrups, Pennines, Whittaker and Mapplebecks and Ellis Briggs were to those in the industrial cities of Leeds and Bradford..just some fifty or sixty miles away to the north.
When I think back to those days and to J F WILSON bikes I remember the little cotton casquettes, the musettes, the team jerseys with the three pockets at the back..but even better, the two pockets on the chest..the spare tubs wrapped in a figure -of -eight over the riders' shoulders....aluminium drinking bottles held in wire handlebar cages, Pennine CO2 pumps on brakets behind the seat tube..
The Ebay frame also features on the owner's Flickr site, where there is a little more information..but not much. The renoovation was carried out by Chris Marshall a frame-builder friend of mine based in Keighley..just up the road from Ellis-Briggs and just down the road from my place...Chris does my spray-jobs. I was in there today..he was working on an Ephgrave No1 track frame, a Longstaff, a couple of Bespokes..and awaiting the delivery of three E A Boults.
The Ebay WILSON is an early one built by James himself..using a rarer model of Oscar Egg Super Champion lugs, just slit and slightly tweaked into something a little bit different on the head-tube..just as Bob Jackson and the others did. The seat lug arrangement that needs a separate clip is unusual and obviously an attempt to give the frame an Italian flavour to look like the Frejus, Fiorelli and Doniselli frames that were starting to enter the UK at that time, as the Oscar Egg seat lug had a pressed-in seat-bolt eye like most lugs of that era..so James altered it somewhat.
Kevin says he would buy it if it was his size...and I don't blame him..it's a period correct frame redolent of all that was best and cutting-edge in the UK at that time..the 50s look. Would I buy it...well..it's four and half inches too bif for me..but the spray-job alone must be worth the starting price and more..
And Yes! I would buy it..if I had not just recently bought a 21.5 1952 J F WILSON Tour of Britain model..fully renovated in Bianchi blue with white head and seat panels...and the Pennine CO2 pump lug behind the seat tube...and Nervex Serie Legere lugwork.
Norris Lockley..Settle UK