I have just found out on another forum that somebody would like to set op a Welbike Register. It may be interesting to know that Lex Schmidt had already started a similar Register.

Henk Joore is keeping a list with frame and engine numbers of the surviving BSA M20 and M21 models .

Rob van den Brink is doing the same thing for the Norton 16H and Big 4 motorcycles.

John Tinley is keeping a Register of the Matchless G3/L and G3WO models, and I have expanded my Royal Enfield WD Models Register, so that it now caters for the WD/D, WD/C, WD/CO, WD/G, WD/L and WD/RE models.

To anybody with such a motorcycle who hasn't been in contact with one of the registrars yet: please send us an email!


Thanks for your help,
Cheers,
Jan

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

Jan, just to let you know that I have the details of 76 surviving G3WO's and 111 G3L's. It surprises me how many G3WO's have survived compared with the G3L when they made nearly 4 times as many.

If you have either a G3WO or G3L I would be really grateful to hear from you with the engine and frame numbers for my register. Cheers, John

email (option): tinley@btinternet.com

Arnold Hoekmeier has a register for WD Triumphs on his website: www.wdtriumph.nl for everyone to see.

Henk en Rob do a public register with owner and country plus motorcycle details. Are any of the other registers mentioned in previous posting on here publicly accessible? If so, how can we see the contents?

One of the aspects of a openly published register of owners and bikes (on paper or on the internet) is that this could attract the unwanted attention of people with less than good intentions.
But a register kept for oneself does not serve any public interest either. So what is right to do?
Publicly list your registered machines and owners, but only with the explicit permission of the registrered owners, and omitting details like addresses etc.?

Some of the owners of the motorcycles in my Register have explicitly asked me not to publish their details. I will of course respect this, as I never had the intention to publish this Register, neither on paper nor on the internet.

I disagree with your saying that “a register kept for oneself does not serve any public interest either.”
I have brought likely minded people in contact with each other, and my Register was also the basis for my “Royal Enfield WD Models Report” research work. The result of this research is free to anybody who’s interested…

Jan

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

I started making a list of bikes just to see how many are still surviving.
I have kept the list very basic to give as little as possible public information.

I have made it absolutely clear to everybody that it is a voluntary list and always request a written permission to do so.
I can show an email for every bike that is on the website giving me that permission.
There are a few that do not want their details on the website and are thus not added.
Some bikes have been advertised on the internet and for those that I have added I have no specific permission. As I also do not know in a number of those cases where the bikes went to I may not have the permission of the present owner. On the other hand I have no name and country to add so its quite anonymous anyway. I do not know the address or detailed whereabouts of any bike on the list but a few. Keeping it just to name and country is hopefully anonymous enough. I specifically decided not to add email addresses for the same reasons.

The opposite of the fear of Rob is that if one is stolen there may be a little more possibility to have it recovered unless its broken down for parts.
I think we should not live to much in the fear of nasty things. It ruins your life.

I know there are more bikes around which are not in my list. Its up to the owners to tell about it. Quite a number are riding around in civilian disguise and those owners mostly have not even a clue or do not want to know its military origin.

It will never be a complete list but I do hope that as many owners as possible do let me know what they have, for everybody to see.

At present I have about 250 16H and B4's in my list. Where are the others?

Cheers,

Rob

email (option): WD16H@telfort.nl

The question arises slightly in my mind of "Why a register ?" ...There are probably as many reasons as there are registers.

Many of us have the collecting bug in one way or another and collecting lists of everything is a part of the hobby. There is certainly little point in collecting lists of machines unless it is either for research or to assist owners.

I know that Jan has made significant discoveries about Enfield production and dates based upon his analysis of surviving machines and their locations. His assessment of the total number of French contract WD/Cs was shown to be within single figures of the total of French 'census' numbers now known to have been allocated.

Although the lists are not public, the information generated by them is made available in some detail.

Rob's public list shows for instance that Norway has 1940 survivors and 1945 machines which fit in perfectly with the known history. These jig-saw parts all fit together.

The public lists also have the benefit of potentially re-uniting frames and engines and Henk's site has done just that.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the usefulness of photographing all the stampings and markings when submitting info to the keepers of the registers. This information is slowly but surely helping to fill in the missing gaps that all makes have in the production records. The Ministry Inspector's stamps are particularly of interest.

Personally, I'm compiling a list for my own interest of all wartime and subsequent use relating to Norton contract C5109 (Frame and Engines W1000 - W6999). If anyone has any components bearing these numbers, I'd be very interested to see them.

I did learn on thing and that is that BSA's with matching engine and frame numbers are pretty common but still nice to have

email (option): ahum@quicknet.nl

Yes I did start several registers 25 years ago, but only do Welbikes (64 entries till now!) and Big Fours, (about 50 entries)

Big Fours even had gearboxes, petrol tanks and girder forks stamped with numbers, and these can (sometimes) be found back in the production ledgers

Gave all my Matchless stuff to John T. as he already had more then me, the R.E. Flea stuff will go to Jan.

It is quite interesting and helpfull to other owners, even without them seeing all the data, to for example find the right C number, find the right engine number etc. etc.

And for the Welbikes to spot the many fakes, as more than 5 owners of replica Welbikes have falsified their framenumbers/build year to get age related numbers and official papers.

So it's very good of some people to hold these registers with as much data as possible, as "patterns" can be detected from them.

Very interesting for the rivet counters under us, so keep the data coming!!

I also keep records for US Cushman Mod. 53 Airborne scooters and US 75mm Pack Howitzers.

Cheers,

Lex

email (option): welbike@welbike.net

I think the registers that do exist are most vital ( appart from the obvious ) in creating a "little bit of glue " to help us Wd bike enthusiasts have a little bit of cohesion in a hobby that has no offical club. and i am sure that the diehard individials in the Wd bike fraternity do not want "organising " into a club anyway. or do they ?
The registers put like minded people in touch with each other without compromising their security..well done all of you

Ed

email (option): edd@abbottracing.com

Just because of this post, I got 2 more numbers added to the database!

For Big 4's I forgot, there's also 2 numbers stamped on the sidecarframe, one on the front right hand lug, and one under the front r/h spring, and one on a pressed plate inside the rear box, need some more info on those, as I will reproduce them soon, anyone any info?? any pictures? (have 2 pictures, both numbers "B" prefixed)

Cheers,

Lex

email (option): welbike@welbike.net

Hats off to all you folk who put a lot of your precious time into maintaining these registers.
The information that has been gathered and disseminated has proven to be invaluable to both restorers and historians.
Keep up the good work, fellers!

Bruce

email (option): brucekirby@telkomsa.net