# Elgin Oriole



## fat tire trader (Jan 14, 2014)

Hello,
This morning, I made a web page to show my Elgin Oriole project.

http://fattiretrading.com/oriole.html

 I would appreciate it if you guys would look at it and comment. Do I need to make any corrections? I'd like to add photos of nice original Orioles to the page. Does anyone have a photo of one of their bikes that they would let me use?
Thanks!
Chris


----------



## cds2323 (Jan 14, 2014)

I have a 37 Oriole that also has a Morrow hub with the raised center and grease fitting. Hub is marked G3, from 3rd quarter of 1937. The serial number on the frame also points to the last part of 1937. Fenders are aluminum, and also had the Wald stem and steerhorn bars when found.


----------



## fat tire trader (Jan 14, 2014)

Thanks for the info. I will add it to my page. Can you provide a picture of your bike? I have heard about the aluminum fenders. Do you know if they were available in other years? Is the chain guard still steel?
Thanks,
Chris


----------



## cds2323 (Jan 15, 2014)

Might be a while til I get a photo of the bike, it's stored for winter and there are many bikes in front of it. Wouldn't you know it's the first one closest to wall. Chainguard is steel. Not sure what years aluminum fenders were offered. Stainless were also offered and possibly regular chrome. Crescent fenders until 38, when gothic fenders appeared. The only gothic ones I've seen were aluminum, don't know if other gothic fenders were used.


----------



## jpromo (Jan 15, 2014)

Here's some shots of my Murray built. Year unknown; serial is not indicative of anything. Picked up at the Memory Lane swap last spring as shown; cleaned and serviced everything. Rack was offered in the catalogs in black or chrome, so I gather that's even been on the bike since new. Fenders are stainless. I feel like every advertisement I've seen calls for chromium fenders, when all the actual bikes I've seen have been aluminum or SS.

PS: Looking for a nicer saddle if anybody has one!


----------



## bike (Jan 16, 2014)

*So what about*

the initials they are talking about?

JPROMO's bike seems to be murray with wishbone stay and forged fork crown- illustrations in catalogs posted seem to show different (westfield?) stays and stacked plates for fork crown....any connection to type of fenders used?

Chris's bike has alemite on the frame- would it not then have alemite on the wheels when new??


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

The Sears catalog reprint book describes mudguards:

1936 F/W: stainless steel plate to resist rust on the Oriole, enamel on the Fully Equipped bike with the same frame.
1937 S/S: chrome plate (and steer horn handlebars)
1937-1938 F/W: lustrous, polished (the fenders were stainless steel on the '37/'38 I had)
1937 Christmas: chrome plate, ad shown below
1938 S/S: gothic, brightly polished (peaked aluminum, locking channel side stand, 2-speed offered)

The cat's show pedals for 1936-1937 that have what looks like diamond-tread blocks and Persons-type end plates; the 1938 look like Torrington 10.


----------



## fat tire trader (Jan 16, 2014)

JPROMO,
Do you mind taking some more pictures of your bike with a plain background for me to put on my Oriole page? I'd like to show both the Westfield Oriole and the Murray Oriole.

My Oriole does have the alemite ports on the bottom bracket, but not on the head tube. I will look closer at the head tube to see if the hole for the port is there.

It appears that some of the Westfield Orioles had a special crown for the truss rods and some did not. I'm assuming that the earlier ones had the fork crown like the one on my bike. I think that this same fork came on some Mead bikes. 

I really need the truss rods, by bike looks dismembered without them.

Thanks,
Chris


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

bike said:


> the initials they are talking about?...JPROMO's bike seems to be murray with wishbone stay and forged fork crown- illustrations in catalogs posted seem to show different (westfield?) stays and stacked plates for fork crown....any connection to type of fenders used?
> 
> Chris's bike has alemite on the frame- would it not then have alemite on the wheels when new??




Can't find the mention of initials, but think I remember seeing it?
Yeah, never seen an ad showing the Flowline (Murray) frame Oriole...any out there?
From what I've seen fenders seem: Westfield flat braces, Murray pressed steel. 
Have seen 4 kinds of forks:
Westfield with and without trussrod "ears", tubular legs. Rounded forged-crown with blade legs shown below, might have been changed?
Murray with forged gothic crown and tubular legs.
Hubs: the original I had was Westfield-built, Alemite head and BB, Air-Cooled Alemite rear, front was the type typically found on Westfield bikes, no Alemite.


----------



## jpromo (Jan 16, 2014)

fat tire trader said:


> JPROMO,
> Do you mind taking some more pictures of your bike with a plain background for me to put on my Oriole page? I'd like to show both the Westfield Oriole and the Murray Oriole.




I'd be glad to get some better pictures. I usually take them with a quiet background and hated these pictures right away for it. Unfortunately, the snowy midwest is making me wait for a thaw to do any digging through the bicycle jungle.


----------



## fat tire trader (Jan 16, 2014)

alw said:


> Can't find the mention of initials, but think I remember seeing it?




I guess I missed something, what initials are referring to? 




alw said:


> Rounded forged-crown with blade legs shown below, might have been changed?




My guess is the fork has been changed. I don't remember seeing those forks that early. If you still have that rusty frame, there are a couple of guys on the cabe that are looking for one.




alw said:


> Murray with forged gothic crown and tubular legs.




The Murray fork is my favorite rigid fork, it has survived over 100 trips down Mt. Tamalpais and Pine Mtn. Its too bad that Murray's quality decreased so much after the war. Their prewar bikes are super.


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

fat tire trader said:


> My guess is the fork has been changed. I don't remember seeing those forks that early. If you still have that rusty frame, there are a couple of guys on the cabe that are looking for one.




Probably so. When I first found these pics I thought the fork was the Westfield with rounded crown and tubular legs.
I don't have the frame/fork, found the pics on the cabe, old post.


----------



## scrubbinrims (Jan 16, 2014)

This post is evolving nicely...for a 2-3 year run, the streamlined oriole had many forms and in '37 MOH came into the picture.
I really like my oriole, but it is a bastard and not much reference except the seat tube has 3 dashes (versus the conjoined diamonds of 36-37) and has a late '37 serial number...probably actually released in '38.

The most perplexing thing to me is are the fenders...when did aluminum appear as we are left to interpretation to "lustrous" and "polished" since I do not believe they were listed in the catalogue as aluminum and between ss/chromed steel/aluminum, orioles seemed to have the same ducktail and long front.

So were aluminum fenders a substitution or a deliberate offering?

The clues I have are in the two original bikes bicycle below:

The first of which was the donor of the aluminum fenders on my bike and it has the 36-37 seat tube pattern and a rear triple step rim:





The second was a posting here long ago with the seat tube pattern, again with triple step wheels, which push these bikes no later than mid '37 and since I have never seen aluminum fenders on a MOH oriole, this theory is further supported.




I believe the aluminum fender came from the Westfield factories in early '37 and released mid year, neither put out initially or late in the oriole run.
They are very hard to find and is what was meant by "polished" and "lustrous" and not particularly called out as aluminum.

Chris


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

Seems to me "lustrous" is referring to stainless.


----------



## rideahiggins (Jan 16, 2014)

scrubbinrims said:


> This post is evolving nicely...for a 2-3 year run, the streamlined oriole had many forms and in '37 MOH came into the picture.
> I really like my oriole, but it is a bastard and not much reference except the seat tube has 3 dashes (versus the conjoined diamonds of 36-37) and has a late '37 serial number...probably actually released in '38.
> 
> The most perplexing thing to me is are the fenders...when did aluminum appear as we are left to interpretation to "lustrous" and "polished" since I do not believe they were listed in the catalogue as aluminum and between ss/chromed steel/aluminum, orioles seemed to have the same ducktail and long front.
> ...



These two photos are of the same bike years apart. I own this bike now.


----------



## scrubbinrims (Jan 16, 2014)

alw said:


> Seems to me "lustrous" is referring to stainless.




Okay, that's your interpretation.
Aluminum polishes as lustrous as stainless in my interpretation and simply by using the term, suggests something other than ss, which is implicit and stainless steel is called out in the literature.
Also, if Aluminum is absent in the catalogues, just when was it issued?
Chris


----------



## scrubbinrims (Jan 16, 2014)

rideahiggins said:


> These two photos are of the same bike years apart. I own this bike now.




Funny Jim...but the aluminum fenders just got a degree rarer .
Chris


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

scrubbinrims said:


> ...and stainless steel is called out in the literature.
> Also, if Aluminum is absent in the catalogues, just when was it issued?




Didn't find "stainless steel" noted in any adverts, but it's unlikely that I've seen them all.
Could "stainless steel plate" mean chromium plated steel? 
"Brightly polished" clearly refers to the aluminum Gothic. 
Since the fenders on the original 1937/1938 I had were stainless, it seems plausible that "lustrous" describes stainless, especially since "brightly polished" refers to aluminum.
Catalogs are not an exact guide though.

 1936 F/W: stainless steel plate to resist rust on the Oriole, enamel on the Fully Equipped bike with the same frame.
 1937 S/S: chrome plate (and steer horn handlebars)
 1937-1938 F/W: lustrous, polished (the fenders were stainless steel on the '37/'38 I had)
 1937 Christmas: chrome plate, ad shown below
 1938 S/S: gothic, brightly polished (peaked aluminum, locking channel side stand, 2-speed offered)


----------



## Balloontyre (Jan 16, 2014)

*1929 had initials*

This is the only year I can find with initials offered to personalize your bike.


----------



## jpromo (Jan 16, 2014)

Lustrous to me is a way of saying shiny without specifying the material used. Maybe because they didn't have a sole material they planned to use for whatever reason. Either way, I think the catalogs need be treated less as a bible and more as Virgil, guiding Dante through the layers of bicycle hell.

For comparison to my SS fenders, here are the gothic aluminums from my '39 Elgin. Side-by-side with one polished (with buffing pad and polishing compounds, no wet sanding). So they have potential to be a little more sparkly, but still not the mirror that the stainless is with the same products. I don't know how this is relevant to the conversation but I had the pictures laying around.


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

jpromo said:


> Lustrous to me is a way of saying shiny without specifying the material used.




'zactly


----------



## Balloontyre (Jan 16, 2014)

*Getta peek at dis,  Ultra Lustrious*

1934 Ad from the big book of Sears.


----------



## Balloontyre (Jan 16, 2014)

*Fall Winter 37/38*

Accessories page clip.


----------



## Balloontyre (Jan 16, 2014)

alw said:


> "Brightly polished" clearly refers to the aluminum Gothic.



I'm not finding Gothic Aluminum, just polished Gothic fenders, no reference of material used.
What catalog has the Gothic Aluminum?


----------



## rustjunkie (Jan 16, 2014)

Balloontyre said:


> I'm not finding Gothic Aluminum, just polished Gothic fenders, no reference of material used.
> What catalog has the Gothic Aluminum?




Granted, "aluminum" is not stated, but we know they are not enameled. Anyone have gothic stainless mudguards on a ~1938 Elgin?


----------



## Balloontyre (Jan 16, 2014)

alw said:


> Granted, "aluminum" is not stated, but we know they are not enameled. Anyone have gothic stainless mudguards on a ~1938 Elgin?



Cool, Thank you.


----------



## rideahiggins (Jan 16, 2014)

scrubbinrims said:


> Funny Jim...but the aluminum fenders just got a degree rarer .
> Chris




I should have said I own this frame minus the fenders.


----------



## scrubbinrims (Jan 16, 2014)

rideahiggins said:


> I should have said I own this frame minus the fenders.




Jim,
Please post the serial number from your bike (once you clear a path to it).
Thanks, Chris


----------



## scrubbinrims (Jan 17, 2014)

Big thanks to rideahiggins for flipping his Oriole that had aluminum fenders and snapping a pic of the SN A259240 below:




So, his bike was produced very late in '36 since the SN records at Mr. Columbia's site go through A266083.
The question remain now if the aluminum guards were optioned for a Holiday '36 catalogue, or for some reason, they were issued in the Spring of '37, however the catalogue lists the mudguards as lustrous chrome plated.
The first appearance of the streamlined Oriole was F/W of '36 as mentioned previously had stainless steel plating and it is possible that that the first productions had aluminum substituted, but again up for speculation.
Either way, the other evidence with the seatpost detail, triple steps, and Westfield only still support these theories.
Chris


----------



## fat tire trader (Jan 18, 2014)

Thanks for all of the contributions!
I will update my page soon.
I was looking at the holes in my chainstay and the dent in my downtube and I theorized that the holes and dent may be from where a side car had been attached. What do you guys think? The dent could be from an accident. The holes were purposely drilled there for something.
Thanks,
Chris


----------



## jpromo (Jan 18, 2014)

fat tire trader said:


> What do you guys think? The dent could be from an accident. The holes were purposely drilled there for something.




I wanted it so badly to be from a Musselman suicide shifter. The holes are right where the clamps would hold it on, as if the owner was looking for more support on the shifter.. also explaining the Morrow hub.. then I realized the holes were on the wrong side of the bike.


----------



## fat tire trader (Jan 26, 2014)

I have updated my Oriole page. When I first wrote the page, I ignored the early Orioles, which I am calling "first series". They are now included. There are still a few details, like different fenders, that I have not included. You can see it here

http://fattiretrading.com/oriole.html

Thanks,
Chris


----------



## fat tire trader (Jan 26, 2014)

I changed the saddle and grips on my Oriole. I tried some chain guards that looked right, but the brackets don't fit the frame. Can anyone post some good pics of how their chain guard attaches? 
Thanks,
Chris


----------



## tech549 (Sep 2, 2015)

hey can you elgin guys help me out with a few questions I have on a 36 elgin I just purchased ,with all the posts you have on here about these bikes  I do not see one without the rear ears on the rear drop out  like mine so I don't know what stand it takes and mine has the rain cutter type fenders.


----------



## bikewhorder (Sep 2, 2015)

tech549 said:


> hey can you elgin guys help me out with a few questions I have on a 36 elgin I just purchased ,with all the posts you have on here about these bikes  I do not see one without the rear ears on the rear drop out  like mine so I don't know what stand it takes and mine has the rain cutter type fenders.





You need the stand with the riveted on plates to support it.  I can sell you one ($65 + shipping.  Are you going to Trexlertown.  I'll get you pics tomorrow. -Chris


----------



## tech549 (Sep 3, 2015)

sounds good chris,no I am not going to trexlertown,but would like to see this plate set up,thanks paul


----------



## bikewhorder (Sep 4, 2015)

Here's the stand I'd mentioned...


----------



## scrubbinrims (Sep 4, 2015)

I have chrome plated peaked fenders for a streamlined oriole.
They are not cheap though, but would take your bike to the next level.
Chris


----------



## tech549 (Sep 5, 2015)

chris I will take the stand.how do you want to work out the payment.paypal ,money order ?


----------



## tech549 (Sep 5, 2015)

chris I would love to do that but could not swing the fenders right now,lots of stuff going on like moving,i will contact you when things get settled after my closing .thanks paul


----------

