taking a good look at the four jpegs that Nelson sent in of his gas-pipe track frame, I had the feeling that I have seen similar frames before. It was the very stubby short top-eyes and the relatively small rear drop-outs that jogged my memory.
However I am beginning to think that these were just generic items, common to many frames and manufacturers.
The frame is most probably a 30s one..peculiar mixture of bronze-welding and an ugly piped bottom-bracket shell. It looks more than a little French, duly largely to those rear drop-outs and the single-plate fork crown, but I am disinclined to brand it as French as Nelson has not identified the threads in the bracket as metric or BSA. However..the top lock-nut on the headset resembles a Hobbs of Barbicon Lytalloy one...and I don't think that they did metric.
Alcyon, the very well-known French manufacturer ,used a lot of single plate fork crowns on the 1930s. These were, however, made of cast steel rather than just thick pressed plate that would more than likely have tended to bend. The Alcyon crowns were slightly more robust than Nelson's but both shared the fact that they had internal legs cast-in that slotted, much like the Cinelli aero ones of the 70s onwards, into the blades.
I have blown up the jpeg of the fork crown and am fairly certain that there is a line around the top of the blade, just showing in the chrome-plate at the joint of the blade and crown.
So the moral of this email, Nelson, is DO NOT GET RID of the frame..nowehere, until I can check out a 1930s French track frame I have..and I actually know where it is. Just think...in the hands of a skilled frame builder that 21" approx frame you have could have new long mid-section brazed into the head and seat-tubes,.. and it could be transformed into a 25.5" one...plus of course some new seat-stays.. etc etc.. a longer fork column..but the blades and crown would not need altering.
Norris Lockley
Settle UK