How do you find the age of a frame?

I've been curious how old my Harry Hall frame is since getting it, Harry Hall cycles have no idea how to date it, so is there any way I can work out a rough date from the style, lugs, tubeset used etc?

Its reynolds 531c tubing and I cannot see any markings on the lugs or dropouts. HH have stamped 'ST 158' on the underside of the bottom bracket.

is there any way to get an idea of its age?

If it comes with a bell, cut it open and count the rings.

What you wanna do is ask a Marque Enthusiast, mate. In English, a geek.

classic lightweights
classic rendezvous

someone will know, even if Harry Hall have forgotten.

Stan Thornhill - January 1958

Stan Thornhill - January 1958

wow Platini you rule.

WOW!!! how did you find that out, cos I've spent ages googling for info and found nothing.

its also quite a bit older than I expected if that is the case.

If it comes with a bell, cut it open and count the rings.

haha

To quote Big Jim McDonald: "Catch yourselves on."
Just a bit of Friday fun... ;-)

Harry Hall cycles have no idea how to date it

hmmm...

seems like your only options are:

a, forget about it.
b, nail the frame to Harry Hall's front door with a note (written in your own faeces/blood saying "begat the time of the tenth worm") then run screaming, wretched and naked into the night.

post pic of bike and lugs, inc BB

I'll put some piccies up this weekend.

piccies attached, if you anything specific to help age it, let me know!!!

thanks,

10 Attachments

carbon post.

means 27.2 seatpost size?

means probably not that old

70's at the very earliest.

27.2mm became the standard seat-post size because most high-end road frames in the 1970s and 1980s were lugged and were almost universally made out of Columbus SL or SLX or Reynolds 531. These seat tubes were 1-1/8” in diameter, or 28.6mm. The single-butted seat tube was 0.9mm thick at the bottom and 0.6mm thick at the top. Well, 2x0.6mm = 1.2mm, which, when subtracted from 28.6mm, yields an I.D. of 27.4mm. However, the tolerance on the wall thickness and roundness of the seat tube made it so that you rarely could fit a 27.4mm post inside, even before brazing. And then, the seat tube always got distorted during brazing, making it even less possible to fit a 27.4mm in there, but a 27.2mm fit nicely.

yeah 27.2 seat post, I wondered if the 531 stickers would help date it cos IIRC there have been a few designs.

I didn't expect it to be that old, I'm just wondering how old.

crap, my 1949-50 holdsworth has a 27.2 seat post ;)

i've got a similar style for on my holdsworth mistral mid 60's, but rest of lugs look early 70's. my guess mid 60's to mid 70's. nothing fancy lug wise, ruling out early 60's and 50's

crap, my 1949-50 holdsworth has a 27.2 seat post ;)

but it doesn't say 27.2 didn't exist before the 70's
it just says it became standard.

your holdsworth isn't 50's anyway

You lie monsieur - I demand satisfaction!

it's not 50's

I saw him buying it from Halfords the other month

you were in your teens in the 50's right?

piccies attached, if you anything specific to help age it, let me know!!!

thanks,

do you work in a school?

Also its possible its not the original paint job and you can still get Reynolds Stickers covering all the older styles. Hence dating frames by Reynolds stickers is void.

You really need a geek to decipher the frame number.

you were in your teens in the 50's right?

with age comes great wisdom

do you work in a school?

Also its possible its not the original paint job and you can still get Reynolds Stickers covering all the older styles. Hence dating frames by Reynolds stickers is void.

You really need a geek to decipher the frame number.

I work in a university, electronics lab supervisor.

I'm on a fixed gear forum, I though this would be a good place to find a suitable geek ;)

with age comes great wisdom

and great experience in bullshitting ;) see 3rd reply!

Two or three suggestions:

check the OLN (width of read drop outs) - if it is 126mm (I bet it is!) then it is pre 89. If it is 122mm then older even than that.

check the underside of the dtube lug. If it is spear-point NOT rounded, then probably pre 80s.

Also it has the cable guides over the top of BB. I can't recall exactly but I think this pre mid 80s feature.

It seems to have allen key brake bridge - this would make it prob 80s.

The Reynolds sticker is late 80s, but as others have pointed out, it's been resprayed so original stickers would have been removed.

To me, this looks like a bog standard mid 80s clubman-style frame. But it always hard to date a frame exactly, unless you have access to the builders order book.

I've seen those lugs on a few mid-80's bikes.

Yeah, like I said, it's hard to be precise.

Here's an example: I have a frame that was built by Ron Cooper in about 1990. I know it was built by Cooper, because my mate Andy Capp bought it from new, specced it etc. Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure that Cappa has the original order sheet that Cooper gave him when he put the deposit down.

It has been resprayed white, and has no decals, nothing. But the b/b shell has Gillott stamped into it both sides. So the casual observer would assume it is a 'Gillott' and over 40 years old. It's not, it's less than 30 but it easy to see why someone would think that.

Why does it have Gillott stamps? Because Cooper used to be Gillott's builder, and probably bought up all the stock of lugs etc that was left when Edwardes ceased selling Gillott frames.

In a way, it IS a Gillott, though. More on Gillott