Coventry Eagle... bargain or not?

Just got this on e-bay - think I may have a bargain at £26 but I guess I wont know until I see it in the flesh (steel). Marketed as a Coventry Eagle Racing Bike. The aim is to build it into a SS for around town - will be my first own build as up until now I have had an of the peg. Would be interested to know what folks think of this and any pitfalls building up this kind of frame + can anyone give me an idea of age etc...?

Looks like a bargain for £26 and it seems to be a vintage'ish frame

do you have any more photos?

Yeah - well, picking it up in the morning, but here is the link to e-bay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220580067503&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

£26...bargain, without even looking almost.

It is basically a bog standard everday gas-pipe kind of frame. Similar to B.S.A's

Most cov-eagles are simple like that.

But I think that they have heaps of charm (I have one myself) and are kind of special because you dont see to many about.

You basically got what you paid for.

Yours is missing the "coventry eagle" name on the downtube, which in my opinion is the hottest example of bicycle typography.

I forgot to add that my first racing bike was a Coventry Eagle in the 70's

I have a 70s Coventry Eagle 531 butted touring frame. It's really nice, the headbadge (same as yours) is gorgeous, the cable guides over the bottom bracket are really neat, and it has little fleur-de-lys lugs over the bottle cage mounts and pump brackets. Mine was £45 IIRC.

I haven't yet built it into a bike (although I'll hopefully be doing some light touring on it by the end of the summer), but when I do I plan on doing some old fashioned signwriting on the downtube, in the same style as this Coventry Eagle fuel tank

I also live in Coventry during the week so living within spitting distance of the old factory kinda attracted me to the frame too.

Thanks for the comments lads, and frinkmakesyouthink - Coventry is my Dad's home town and we lived in the midlands for many years, at least three of my grandparents not counting uncles worked in some of those famous factories including Alvis so it was kind of a sentimental / heritage buy too...did'nt get to pick it up today so now having to wait until Tuesday...

Lovely frame. I'm also interested in a Coventry Eagle frame. If anybody has one which will fit me (5ft8'') , please let me know.