http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1947-BSA-M20-500cc-single-/160994581478?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item257c065be6

email (option): ahum@quicknet.nl

Hi Henk,i have a picture somewhere of a far worse example that made about £560.00
i will try and find it and post it up,it may already be there.
My guess at the price this will bring is about £900.00,lets see,i personally won't
be bidding.On another note however,there seems to be a lot of these projects
and parts originating from around Southampton,perhaps Ron has found a cave full
and is planning his retirement.
cheers rick

email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com

Looks to have AMC wheels with alloy rims, must have been a racer! Tank needs a good coat of Petseal or similar, looks like it may have a slight pinhole or two.

"..the wheels on the bike have been put on to enable it to be moved about, but do not come with the bike.."

But it is BAS.
Just patch up the tank with a band-aid and you are good to go,
Or replace the tank, and you can save this one as a cut-away...

Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

I dived the Thistlegorm back in 1999 on a stopoff in Egypt during a trip back to UK when living in Kenya. As I recall it had been originally located by Jacques Cousteau sometime back in the '60s or possibly '70s and explored / photographed. The coordinates were then either lost or kept secret for a couple of decades until it was rediscovered by the burgeoning recreational diving industry in Sharm El Sheikh in the early '90s.

It lies upright at about 25 to 30 metres depth on a sandy bottom and I recall penetrating the wreck on the second of two dives on it and gliding a couple of metres over the top of one or two lorries packed solid with WD bikes of various types - biking divers have tried to identify them and I recall Ariels being amongst them , don't remember M20s but most likely they were also there. They were in a very poor state , badly encrusted , as you would imagine.

Lucky day for the Luftwaffe - the same aircraft that bombed the Thistlegorm , finding the magazine , flew across to the other side of the Red Sea and sunk another supply ship near Hurghada waiting to join a convoy through Suez - somewhat deeper and little dived as a result.

That M20 in the Ebay picture looks in far too good nick to have come from a wreck lying at the bottom of the red sea since 1942 (or was it '41 ?) even if it was salvaged only some twenty five or thirty years after the sinking - and I don't recall any salvage work being undertaken by Cousteau and Co.

email (option): fanning_james@hotmail.com

Looks like an old bike that has been lying on it's timing side for 20 odd years.

email (option): wariron@tpg.com.au

I think it is what it says..an ex field bike that ended up in a wood/hedge...I think the Thistlegorm is a war grave isn't it?..If so it would not be legal to remove anything (not that some people care about that).On that basis I wouldn't have thought Jack Custard would have taken anything..Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Hi Folks
It always amazes me how ex wd bikes always seem to be found complete or in large lumps ie complete engines, gearboxes etc rather than as a load of bits in cardboard boxes. Its as though the bikes are just run and run refusing to break down until the owners get bored with them and just leave them in the shed or worse.
Regards
Keith H

Dont look to bad from the photos apart from tinwork lots of useable bits.We have a woods near us that was a dumping ground for old track bikes used by the local farmers sons I rescued a plunger B31 and a AJS girder rigid 500 single but a lot of the bikes got dumped into the railway line that was being used as landfill so got covered up quickly by the dustcarts. I restored a PANTHER which was a lot worse than this one when I went to pick it up the guy gave me a spade and directed me to bottom of his garden. Dave

Hi Kieth...It used to be very common to find bikes like this in the area I live in (South Devon)...The farmers had plenty of room in thier barns/chicken sheds etc. and the easiest thing with an old/broken down vehicle was to shove it in the barn..Believe it or not I got the remains of a Gold Star from a farm, the frame of which had been used to block an unwanted gap in a hedge!...I know of a Triumph TRW at the moment which was pushed (complete) into an old chicken shed and then had about half a ton of wooden planks piled on top of it...First the tyres went down, then the very acidic chicken crap rotted the rims and the wheels collapsed...Now the bottom of the frame has gone and the underside of the gearbox and crankcase have rotted through...pretty sad really...and the Farmer still won't sell it!...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Hi Ian
Yes that really annoys me, you find an old bike rotting in a garden but the guy wont sell it co's he thinks its worth a bomb. Next time you see it it's just a brown stain on the ground worth nothing. Nobody wins.

There's one in my village I've tried to buy more than once....A Royal Enfield Constellation that's under a tarp. outside a shed and hasn't moved a wheel for 20 yrs. minimum. The bloke that owns it is too old to ride it..but he won't bloody sell it and would rather leave it to rot..which no doubt it is.. ...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

a few years ago an old boy i knew has got a matchless or ajs hanging up cant remember which in oily rag condition in his barn 1920s/30s with twin high level exhaust pipes it was featured and road tested in motorcycle magazine of the time i have seen photos of it hanging up and the magazine it was in did ask if he wannted to sell it no luck

email (option): roger.beck@node6.com

It is an official war grave - recall around nine lost their lives in the sinking. It was an armed merchant vessel (one solitary gun , if I remember) and a bomb hit the ship's magazine blowing the stern off. People have nicked the odd small trophy that can fit into a diver's BCD over the years but I'm sure nobody would have even considered salvaging any bikes , after all what would a rusty old army bike have been worth at the scrap yard back in the '60s - 10 bob if you're lucky. This was well before the current great interest in WD bikes was born.

email (option): fanning_james@hotmail.com

Not a bad guess Rick, you said it would make around £900 and it finished at £890!! You should be doing valuations on the Antiques Roadshow.

Hi Bill,that's what you get when you are an antique yourself.Funny thing is,
if i had bid the price would have magically doubled.Better the Antiques road show than Flog it,that puffy bloke dont know his arse from his elbow.
cheers Rick

email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com