When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Early 50s 20” Badge ??

-

ZE52414

Riding a '38 Autocycle Deluxe
So I’ve had my fair share of little 20” ballooners and I’ve never really noticed this. On all the other onEs they’ve had large oval badges. The new little project has a smaller Excelsior badge. Does anyone know when they changed to the large oval? thank you.

26DEFAE4-D74F-4A15-AA72-74ECAD4518DE.jpeg


5C6612B8-0EC8-474F-8825-0F47CB73AE55.jpeg


CB6A22F3-5A7A-41CA-9132-D45A70F12E2F.jpeg
 
What's the screw spacing? I believe the screw spacing was changed from ( 2.75 to 3.25"? ) when the large ovals were used, but I'm not sure when that happened. 1950 maybe.
confused2.gif
 
What drives me nuts is I've seen the large ovals on said 1948 bikes along with the smaller brass badges with the smaller screw spacing. I doubt they used both screw spacings in the same production year, but it could happen.

Here's a supposed 1949 with what appears to have the hole spacing for the large ovals and someone drilled a new hole for the older style badges.

image-8-30-18-at-11-33-am-jpg.jpg
 
Last edited:
It seems a bit unusual, but there were smaller badged 20" bikes. I bought one of the classifieds here last month, and am in the process of going through it to regrease and replace missing pieces. It will also be "upgraded" a little in the process. The first thing I noticed with this was the spacing for the head badge. More will be posted when I get further along with it. Several irons in the fire right now..
This is it:
49 DX 20.jpg

REC
EDIT: After a little more digging, I notice that the long badges seem to start popping up on late production '49 frames. The first one I have is the Yellow B-507 and it was a "Christmas Bike" production, late in the year - November 4th is where the number shows it to be. That fits pretty well with the order and sales receipt of the bike.
I've had a bunch in this period of time and they pretty much follow the same direction in badge size.
REC
 
Last edited:
Back
Top