This could explain that missing frame number!...



Ian

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

Very interesting documentation, and actually quite a sophisticated system for the day.

For decades in the US, a bare frame could be ordered by a dealer (it was assumed to be for wreck damage or warranty repair) and the original number was to be tapped in by the dealer's workshop..( what a mess; odd letter shapes, poor alignment, uneven punch depths) Eventually it became a regulation that the vehicle manufacturer was to stamp a replacement frame with the original number before allowing it to be sent out.

Now in most States a road-legal machine with a replaced frame must be re-titled as "rebuilt" and a new frame number assigned, forevermore branding the bike as "wrecked and God know what might be wrong with it". With today's tougher licensing and registration laws, new frames are hard to come by and can usually only be procured for off-road only, non-licensed machines.

email (option): teladeluji@msn.com

Its a nice document, I presume its post WW2?

I met a chap near where I live some years ago who claimed he had a competition gold star which he had pranged and BSA had supplied a replacement frame, he said he was supposed to have destroyed the original frame but had actually kept it, I wonder how many duplicates like this are still to turn up in the future, it could get awkward if you bought one at a jumble and tried to register it?

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

Was the case down here till at least 1990 when I bought 5 brand new unnumbered SR 500 Frames from a wrecker who was closing down

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au