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Pair of 1968 Raleigh Sports...just got them

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HARPO

Cruisin' on my Bluebird
Not really looking to buy any more bikes right now, and then I spot these two.

Well, the bikes were being sold separately, but I asked about purchasing both to try and get a better deal...which I did. And I couldn't believe the condition when I went to see them. A normal person would leave them as is. But...you all know I need to go the extra mile. I haven't touched these bikes, as I only picked them up early last evening.
Owner was a bike guy who passed away a couple of years ago of Covid, and his brother (a bike guy, but Road bikes) was selling them. They were taken care of, but he had gotten them from a garage sale years prior.

Hubs are dated 5 68 and 10 68, so only months apart from each other. Love the gold striping still on them. Men's rear fender has a wham-o on it, but that appears to really be it. I can't wait to get a nice gloss out of the black paint! 😎

Enjoy the barrage of photos as usual! 🤪

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😲

do not recall seeing those seat stay transfers previously

perhaps it is the case they were employed for only a short time?

wonder if they ran out of front axles at the S-A facility and so began fitting rears to fronts, it shore be a loooooong one

are you able to make out the marking on the brake caliper arm of the rear caliper...or maybe it is just a glitch in the metal?

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@juvela If it's a glitch in the metal, it's the same glitch on the front brake also. Weird. At first I thought it was a poorly stamped out Sir Walter Raleigh figure.

I've had those long front axles on other Raleigh's of around the same year. Supply shortage at the time of the build?
 
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thanks for the response

when enlarged, image marking had shape of a single wing but was unable to see any detail, hence me query

could be as simple as a bit of foreign matter that got into/onto the stamping die

perhaps when the QC folk noticed it they determined it not to be a large enough imperfection to merit rejection...

do all four calipers exhibit it?


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@juvela I took another look at the other bike, and both markings were on it. I took as close up a shot as I could, turned it, and it does appear to be what I originally thought...a figure. One of the early Raleigh Catalogs, 1954, there is a figure of Sir Walter Raleigh standing and this appears to be it.

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The extra long axle probably was to come up with one size that would fit multiple bikes and uses - probably an ease and economy of production thing, like so many things Raleigh from that time. The 1967 Sprite I'm working on has the extra long axle, as did a shop box of replacement Raleigh hubs from that period that I rebuilt this past spring.

The seat stay end transfers seem to have been a short-lived, fragile thing. The bikes I've seen with intact transfers were 1967-69 era, and not all bikes from those years had them (could have worn off, could have never had them). The 1967 Sprite I'm working on has them, the 1970 Sprite I owned previously did not have them. The Sports bikes I've seen were a mix of some with and some without. The "red R" was all the rage at Raleigh at that time, including in the cotter pin and axle nuts. I guess it didn't work out in all places on the bike.

The stamping on the arms is indeed the Raleigh Industries / Walter with cape logo. The earlier stampings from the 1950s are usually crisper than these later ones. The earlier brakes are also better because this was in the period of shaving metal from the calipers to save money (they had to beef up the calipers again later because the thinned calipers were flexing too much).
 
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