Mead tall Ranger i.d. needed

[oldmtrcyc]

I bought this from a good guy here on the Cabe. I am not sure what level i can take it to, but would like to know:

1. What year is it? (Serial number 117203)

2. Are the stainless fenders correct?

3. Has side stand instead of rear stand, and chain guard. Thinking later additions?

 

[oldmtrcyc]

 

[Freqman1]

I can't help you with year--you may be able to pull crank and check for date. I don't believe I have ever seen one of those Rangers with stainless fenders and kickstand and guard are later additions. No guard and should have a drop stand. V/r Shawn

 

[Archie Sturmer]

Might try to determine a manufacturer; for Mead Rangers usually my 1st guess is A&S, but they had a fire and lost serial number records. Mead also had some dated patents for parts such as the 1916-18 chain ring sprocket and 1919-22 rear “drop outs”.

 

[Archie Sturmer]

We see that the truss forks are of the older ribbed type or style. For my 1920’s A&S built Mead Crusader, Pathfinder, Ranger and Girls, I use a rule of 8: first two digits of the serial number plus 8 equals the year estimate of my bicycles; it could be way off. So maybe 11 + 8 = 1919 (?). I have other suspected Mead frame sets that do not have an A&S style stamping of the serial numbers, so I don’t use the same rule for those.

 

[oldmtrcyc]

We see that the truss forks are of the older ribbed type or style. For my 1920’s A&S built Mead Crusader, Pathfinder, Ranger and Girls, I use a rule of 8: first two digits of the serial number plus 8 equals the year estimate of my bicycles; it could be way off. So maybe 11 + 8 = 1919 (?). I have other suspected Mead frame sets that do not have an A&S style stamping of the serial numbers, so I don’t use the same rule for those.

The ribbed style was used on the Rangers, and some Pathfinders, from 1914 to at least 1923. The Crusaders had the fork without the rib.

As for the serial numbers, I am not sure if the "rule of +8" holds true. I owned two nice, original Mead Rangers. Both have 1918 patent dates on the crank, so both 1918 and later.

Ranger Std frame, s/n 85291
Ranger Tall frame, s/n 96714

 

[Archie Sturmer]

As the A&S records were lost in a fire, some may have attempted to re-engineer a serial number-to-date list, (presuming that no numbers were skipped). Such efforts use actual known examples and a lot of extrapolating. There is also a thread about a one millionth bike (7-digits) and a re-start of the SN sequence that year.
One green-highlighted list was posted and shows apparent guestimates of an even 10,000 bicycles per year in 1928, 29 & 30.

Seems like a lot of Mead information on this site was either lost or un-shared — past posts referring to pictures that are just not there anymore(!)(?).