[CR] Romic myster solved & important serial number information

(Example: History:Norris Lockley)

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:20:23 -0600
From: "Matt Beecher" <beech333@gmail.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR] Romic myster solved & important serial number information


Since posting here, I contacted Boone Cycles in TX. They put me in contact with Gerry, who confirmed that the bike is indeed a Romic.

For clarity in her reply, here is my email to her:

*Hello Mrs. Gasiorowski,

I recently picked up what I was told to be a Romic frame(no decals) and heard that Daniel Boone Cycles was closely tied into sales with Romic. Upon contacting them, they directed me to your email address. Do you have that old ledger that Ray used to record his builds and could you confirm whether this poor old frame is truly a Romic? (By the way, I tried contacting you last night, but I received an error message from my email service. If you get more than one email, I apologize.)

My frame has what looks somewhat like Nervex lugs, 27.2 seatpost, Shimano rear dropouts and Campy front, and looks very similar to this red bike<http://www-hsc.usc.edu/%7Erpinder/Romic11/_3.html>(matching lugs and fork crown, which makes me think the fork is original despite Campy dropoutss). From what I understand, it sounds a lot like a Model 25.

However, after contacting the owner of the website linked above, he stated that he does not believe the serial number could be a Romic. Mine is 10360121076, which I assume to be the 10,360th frame built on 12/10/1976. Could that be possible, since Mr. Gasiorowski did not start building frames under the Romic name until 1974?

My serial number brought up another bit of confusion for me. From researching around the internet, I have seen serial numbers below one-thousand and above ten-thousand, but I have not been able to find one in between. Did he/you skip some numbers for some reason.

I would really appreciate it if you could help me out with this little mystery. If you need any more details, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for your time,

Matt Beecher Yorkville, IL*

Thanks Gerry!

Matt

Gerry's reply:

Hi: Yes, I believe you do have a Romic, the serial no. listed a 24 1/2 " Model 25. Your photo clearly shows a shorter back end & a longer front which was Model 25. The serial no. didn't necessarily mean the number of frames built, I'm not sure why he did them the way he did, however, the end numbers are when it was built, before it was painted. I believe it should be a 62cm frame size. We measured from the center of the bottom bracket to the top of the seat lug.

Hope this helps you. If you ever decide you want decals I have some, they cost $29.50 per set. They of course, are not the original silk screen type we used at that time.

Thanks for your interest in Romic.

Gerry Basiorowski

I thought this might be good for the archive. I also wanted to thank everyone for their help/thoughts. I really appreciate it and will now go back to quietly reading other posts.

Matt Beecher
Yorkville, IL