trying to find year of bike

[lspencer001]

Hello. I am new here. I bought a Wards Hawthorne bike at a yard sale. It was all there (in peices) except for the back fender. It is a double frame construction. The guy said that it was his grandfathers and that he thought that it was from 1930. after looking at it i think that it is late 30's to early 40's. I plan on restoring it so any help would be great.


100_8112 by lspencer001, on Flickr

 

[mos6502]

Hello. I am new here. I bought a Wards Hawthorne bike at a yard sale. It was all there (in peices) except for the back fender. It is a double frame construction. The guy said that it was his grandfathers and that he thought that it was from 1930. after looking at it i think that it is late 30's to early 40's. I plan on restoring it so any help would be great. don't know why the pics arn't showing up.

You didn't use the proper address to get them to show up.

100_8112 by lspencer001, on Flickr

Click on the "share" button over the photo on flickr, then click on the "grab html/bbcode" and get the bbcode and paste it here.

 

[Rustinkerer]

It's a fairly rare 5 bar frame. I don't recall the exact years, but around '38-41 I think. -Adam

 

[lspencer001]

ok thanks. I am used to the add attachment button. the numbers on the bottom of the bike are: E16748.

 

[rms37]

The bike is a 1939 Montgomery Ward Hawthorne Standard Model Twin Bar.

The model was offered only in the 1939 Spring/Summer and 1939/1940 Fall/Winter Montgomery Ward catalogs alongside the similar but more deluxe “Zep” Model Twin Bar. These models were produced almost exclusively for Montgomery Ward by MW’s two main suppliers, Cleveland Welding and H.P. Snyder. Your bike is the Cleveland Welding variant.

The evidence that it is the lesser of the two models lies in the factory holes in the front fender that were used to mount the headlight (the deluxe model had twin headlights mounted on a bracket that attached to the fork crown. The other clue is that the frame does not have the two small holes that were drilled into the top of the lower top tube and were used to mount the battery carriage that was itself enclosed in a tank. The holes in the top frame tube are not factory and were probably added by an original owner to mount an accessory of some sort.

While the “Zep” model is one of the most sought after bikes in the hobby, you are probably lucky to have the lesser of the two models which did not have the tank (there is probably one tank for every twenty frames in the hobby) as restoring the bike (you will never find one of those tanks without either extreme amounts dumb luck or plenty of hard cash) becomes a more realistic and affordable option. Still a restoration requires many special parts that are not currently with the bike. I can help you identify what you need if you chose to go that route.

 

[lspencer001]

ok thanks. I only payed a doller for the bike at a yard sale so restoring it sounds like a good option. I didn't know that it was missing a lot of peices. I just thought that it needed the back fender, chain guard and the headlight. any info would be great.