Elgin motorbike serial numbers.

Really nice collection of Elgins..........I really like these bikes!

I've noticed that the Elgins have a very short headtube compared to the third one. Mine appears to be a '35 with s/n 0101791 unless the first digit is an O. Almost the same as the second picture but the rear dropouts are different. Mine point almost straight back. Is the fork crown a triple flange?

yeah it was me who asked for the # on the top one.......
ill get mine up here later after i put the boy to bed

I still have to look at the numbers on this one to make sure it is even an Elgin.....where are they located?[img]http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg195/holyrollin72/S7301870.jpg[/img]

Should be under the bottom bracket.

Mine has the triple also. I would guess your red one is teens or twenties. It looks alot like the 1910 Sears catalog page on the vintage ads thread. After rebuilding mine I've become obsessed with these motorbike style frames!

completely forgot to get mine
anyhow mines j83431

Elgin Motorbike Serial Numbers

I’m happy to see this group taking on the subject of serial numbers for Moto-Bikes and Moto Balloons sold by the Sears Roebuck Company.

Here is some useful up-front information before getting too far in.

Elgin was a brand, not a manufacturer. Sears did not manufacture bicycles but still was one of America’s largest sources for bicycles during the first half of the twentieth century. To keep up with demand Sears used several different bicycle manufacturers to build the bikes they sold.

Sears applied the Elgin brand name only to specific models in their lineup in the early year of the twentieth century and didn’t expand the name to cover their entire line until the 1920’s. The first true Moto-Bike model sold by Sears was not an Elgin; it was the Sears Chief which was marketed with slight variations from about 1914-1915 into the early twenties. The Chief was produced for Sears by the Davis Sewing Machine Company which produced lines of bicycles under several badge lines, most notably Dayton.

Introduced during the mid teens, Moto-Bikes became the industry standard during the twenties and were produced with few changes until the advent of clincher balloon tires. Sears introduced models with 26” clincher balloon tires beginning in 1933 and dropped the 28” single tube tire equipped variants by early 1936. Moto framed balloon models were available from Sears as late as early 1938 before being completely replaced by models with streamlined frames

While Sears did not manufacture bicycles they ultimately went on to support an in-house design staff that worked with the actual manufacturers to develop special features and even bicycle designs that were exclusive to Sears. By the late thirties many Sears bicycles used serial numbers that were specific to Sears rather than to the actual manufacturer.

This is not the case with the earlier bikes that bear serial numbers that relate to the actual manufacturer's serial numbering system.

At various times and sometimes simultaneously during the Moto-Bike/Moto-Balloon period Sears sold bikes actually produced by at least three different companies; the previously mentioned Davis, the Westfield Manufacturing Company, and the H.P. Snyder Manufacturing Company. It is likely that other manufacturers may have also contributed bikes to the Sears pipeline during that time period.

A collection of serial numbers (provided the submissions reach critical mass) will definitely bring about a better understanding of Moto Elgins generally and also provide useful information about the individual manufacturers of the bikes. The caution here is to recognize that individually the serial numbers will not show a correlation between models from different suppliers.

I have more Information to post on this subject and plan to do so but I wanted to get this overview up early enough to be useful.

Moto-Bikes and Moto-Balloons

The first thing I’ll clarify is my own use of the above terms. Motobike and Motorbike and variations of these names were used somewhat indiscriminately over the years by the various manufacturers to describe general and specific bicycles in their project lines.

I use the terms Moto-Bike and Moto Balloon to refer to bicycles produced between the early teens and the late thirties that use a frame that has specific characteristics.

Moto frames by my definition have frame tubes that are all virtually straight (viewed from the side) with the exception of the top tube which has a pronounced downward kink or bend as it approaches the seat cluster. In addition Moto frames have a second straight reinforcing top tube running beneath the primary top tube. The same frame without the second top tube is known as a camel back frame and while camel backs were offered by most manufacturers as companion models to their full Moto frames, I don’t consider them to be true Moto frames.

I make the distinction between Moto-Bike and Moto-Balloon mainly to create a niche for the earliest balloon tire bikes which were essentially Moto-Bike models adapted to use the new 26” low pressure clincher balloon wheels and tires.

The bicycles described above form a specific part of the broader history of the bicycle and I have defined them somewhat narrowly to focus on their particular history. These are definitions I use and aren’t meant to conflict with anyone else’s chosen definitions or the use of a similar term used in a manufacturers literature to describe what I would consider a streamlined frame.

I find Phil's info extremely interesting. With his help I was able to nail this down as a Westfield built '37. From looking at the book on Elgin's this was possibly the last version of the moto-balloon Elgin. It's in the winter/spring 37/38 catolog. The forks on mine and in the catolog for this bike show no braces on the crown for the truss rods. Serial # is B35986

Hope you don't mind if I add this to your thread. -Jeff

rms37 said:

Elgin Motorbike Serial Numbers
Moto framed balloon models were available from Sears as late as early 1938 before being completely replaced by models with streamlined frames

Click to expand...

Boardtrack fan, my forks are identical to the blue one. I'm going to assume that my sn is O101791 instead of 0101791. Seems to fit the pattern of #s.
rms37, Thanks, very interesting reading. Please continue.

Well dont fall over, but I finally found time (ten minutes till I had to leave for work this morning) to scrape off the grease to find numbers[img]http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg195/holyrollin72/S7302082.jpg[/img]

I should have asked to identify the year from these, if anyone can help dont be shy 8)

I.D. bump!

Hey i was wondering if anyone here can direct me on a good identifying source for this brand/make of bicycle? I have discovered a Bicycle that I believe is very similar to the Blue/White bike with the 3 flanges on the front forks But it has fenders front and rear, as well as a chain chrome chain guard. It is VERY difficult to gain access to as it is hanging about 25-30 feet off the ground inside a very old barn. where are the Serial #'s located.

The bike has been heavily covered in paint and there are no Id # that i could easily see from my access point.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

I want to restore this bike one way or the other.

Cheers!!

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but the pictures on this interest me. Did anyone figure out what the one bike with the taller head tube and closer bars was? (The one mentioned being damaged by USPS in the first post) I have an badged Elgin on the way with the same frame but with a split truss rod fork. The speculation was that it was a Westfield, but the frames with the taller headtube like the bike seen in this thread look like Davis/Daytons? What ever became of that one bike with the odd frame in the first post (assuming the folks from this thread are still around here somewhere)?