Having Steve Madden cornered at Goodwood, I asked him to look at the brass plate on the G3L. I have never been convinced I knew what it means, but Steve had a suggestion (a polite one as well). There are two lines of letters and numbers; top line reads "27 INF SEC51" which Steve suggested was 27th Infantry (Division). The line below is "78 BP 00 22361435". We are not sure about second number (some depot record number?) but the 78 BP 00 looks like a post-war registration. Engine and frame NOS date the bike to a 43/44 contract and the previous owner thought it ended up serving in the BAOR. Anyone like to add or deny anything? Cheers, Ferg
A photo of the plate would be useful as the clues are sometimes in the details but it is quite common to see references on the plates to Command Workshops. SEC could well be 'South Eastern Command', which ceased to exist at the end of 1944 (but may have reappeared post-war).
There wasn't a wartime 27th Division and it can't relate to 27th Infantry Brigade as they were disbanded in 1940 to reform the 51st Division which was lost in France.
I would doubt that the 'BP' sequence forms part of the registration of a vehicle which had seen wartime service as they were allocated blocks at the end of the alphabet ('YA', 'ZB', that sort of sequence).
I think your correct about the registration number of the bike but looking at the second series of numbers could be, and I'm only suggesting, that it could be the service number of the chap that it was assigned to, although I have never seen it before, If it was someones service number it would date from around the late forties early fifties, me thinks, I know when I served in the 1960 my number started 2384####
Lex, at last the penny has dropped! You have solved a mystery that no-one else has solved for the 10 years I have had the Matchless. The brass plate is affixed to a toolbox that was not Matchless but no-one spotted it is in fact from a TRW! I just checked out a photo of a TRW and it is the lower triangular box. It actually fits very neatly on the G3L so while I did buy a Matchless one, I thought it may as well keep its old wrong one. But if someone needs a TRW box, do let me know!! Thanks again, Lex. Ferg
Bill, I dunno. My Matchless toolbox cost me £35.00. How does that sound? It's very sound, no rust, no dents. It has some holes where the brass plate is bolted on and a tiny hole I drilled to take a Normandy 65 badge. I can take some pics if you are interested. Email me.. Ferg
