When the bikes were sold off, by auction, there usually was a lot No. painted on the bikes, and the Military reg. No. was crossed out or painted over, not always though, maybe Henk has any pictures of bikes like that?? I can't find any right now.
I will be adding a box full of (early) postwar sales catalogs to my collection soon, and will try to digitalize all the bikes in there, but the info in there is sketchy at times, see sample scans.
Another clue would have been, to have looked if there was green paint under the tan?? the army would have never stripped the bike to bare metal, so if there was green under it, it's more likely to have been original tan coloured from the army, if not, the bike was totally stripped, and painted tan, so that points more to a later restoration.
Cheers,
Lex
PS, I do have a lot of info on postwar bikes like Thriumph TRW and BSA B40's.
email (option): welbike@welbi(XX).net (think about this!!)