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1935 Elgin help

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X-53kris

Finally riding a big boys bike
There’s a few things about my 35’ Elgin that have been bugging me. This bike was found in the basement of a really old house, my guess based on the era of the rear delta lights that I removed was that it probably hadn’t been ridden since the 50s. The chain treads were petrified solid and the tubes literally turned to rock and crumbled😂. I’ve had it for about 4 months now and naturally I looked at every thread imaginable to find more information about it… from the photos that I saw, it appears to maybe have the wrong fenders and handlebars (the rollfast version has the fenders that look just like mine). This bike has a wise lock, a prewar E.A. Laboratories headlight, ND odometer, and ND front brake, and a Persons deluxe saddle which obviously shows that it was heavily accessorized, therefore the handlebars may have been catalog aftermarket as well since they are wider and more relaxed than the originals🤷. It has about 3 layers of house paint but I can see the original red paint underneath in some areas but I can’t see red in any of the chipped areas on the fenders, it looks like they were originally black. I’ll include a picture of the sn but it’s hard to tell if the first digit is an N or not which would designate it as a 35’ Westfield built Elgin. Could it be a rebadge of something else???? Maybe the handlebars and fenders are just period aftermarket????

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looks like a Westfield built Elgin, red would have been the original color, with ivory trim, similar to 36. Heck, clean it up as is and ride the wheels off, that is a great bike.

here is an image of the 36 model from the catalog

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looks like a Westfield built Elgin, red would have been the original color, with ivory trim, similar to 36. Heck, clean it up as is and ride the wheels off, that is a great bike.

here is an image of the 36 model from the catalog

View attachment 1703932
It’s all cleaned up and rides absolutely perfect, the pics with the white tires are my most recent photos that I took after I cleaned it and got it rideable. I can actually see some of the ivory pins showing through on the top tube. Tomorrow I’ll start the tedious process of getting down to the original paint. I’ll post some pics of what it looks like when I’m done.
 
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you could take it to a car wash, add a can of easy off oven cleaner on that paint for about 10 minutes and blast most of it off.
 
Hi @X-53kris

I read N121869 as the serial number. which is late 1935. There will be another number stamped above it, possibly B9 or B10, which will help date it more exactly, if you can tell us.

Thanks,

Best Regards,

Adrian
 
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