Awesome bike Ron.
Yes, there is a way to date the Murray badged bikes. Railrider(Ron), Eddie Hill, and myself have studied this for a while. The 3 of us together have probably owned almost 200 Murrays in the last 5 years. We feel that ,for the most part, that they are rather simple.
Using the green Westernflyers serial number above as an example:
MO6 = Murray of Ohio 1966
.28 = the model number. In this case, 28 is the model number for a fenderless Wildcat(cantilever) framed 20" boys bike. (In 67 or 68 they changed to a 3 digit model number and in 69 changed to a 4 digit model number.)
X10 = Western Auto. We refer to this as the "X" number. It was like an order number. We still don't know all of the "X" numbers, but we do know for sure that every Westerflyer from at least 66 and up that we have owned and that was built by Murray has X10 in this position.
The last 6 digits is the sequential production number.
I do know for a fact that some Murray lightweights from the mid 60's had a different style serial number, similar to the schwinns. We also know that Sears badged Murray built bikes all started with the numbers "502" and then the next 4 or 5 digits was the actual part number listed in the Sears catalogs. We also know that Gambles Hiawatha badged Murray built bikes had yet a different style serial number. They started with a WG or a WG3 and then the next 3 digits was the part number listed in the Gambles catalogs. I have personally owned a few Murray built bikes that had numerous digits actually missing completely from the serial number.
In my opinion, Murray was the best documented bike in the business. You can't fake a Murray and get away with it if you know the model numbers. It's not like a schwinn where you can take a standard 3 or 5 speed and turn into that special model and triple its price. When you buy a Murray, just check out the model number in the appropriate catalog to authenticate it and you know if someone is trying to put the screws to you. It's almost as easy on the older Murrays too. I am still working on the serial number breakdown for them. So far I know that they used a single letter to represent the year and a 2 digit model number. Also, the older Murray built bikes sold by Sears had the 502 number on them too. I have posted a number of Murray catalog pages in the Ads section in the bike gallery on this forum. Check them out. Kenny.
If you want to restore it later, it's always an option, but they are only original once.
