picked up a few "free" bikes from a friend of mine today. this one was in with the deal, skip tooth rear drop outs super crusty has "rat" written all over it! 8) can anyone tell me what it is? has serial number on bottom bracket-J84721.
WHAT IS IT? IDENTIFY PLEASE! CAN ANYONE DATE IT FOR ME?
- Thread starter murraymadman
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Re: WHAT IS IT? IDENTIFY PLEASE!
Cleveland Welding, YES. One my favorite frames. Some of the best looking rat bikes on RRB use that frame, IMO.
Look at the BB again and you may be able to see the C with the w inside. Coolest of frames for FREE, a lucky man you are.
Cleveland Welding, YES. One my favorite frames. Some of the best looking rat bikes on RRB use that frame, IMO.
Look at the BB again and you may be able to see the C with the w inside. Coolest of frames for FREE, a lucky man you are.
didn't know if there is a way to date this bike for me with the serial number in the first post. i would love to know the year!
The bike is Cleveland Welding built and is postwar. The serial number, J84721, would have been used several times during the postwar years. The important thing is to look carefully for a serial number suffix that would likely be Cw or ACw. In either case the small w will be in the mouth of the C. If you look carefully and there is no suffix then it would predate the suffix bikes. The suffix along with the serial number will roughly pin the bike down to the year it was built.
great find. at first the chainring looked like a monark, but just similar i guess. early 50's.?
i can find no cw or acw on the bracket anywhere. so what would this tell me?
J84721 without a suffix places the frame near the end of the first series of CWC postwar serial numbers. After the run through “J” the leading letter returned to “A” to begin the second series. Early in the second series the Cw was added to differentiate the second series from the first.
Based on my model your serial number indicates the frame was produced in early 1947.
Based on my model your serial number indicates the frame was produced in early 1947.
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roadmaster said:
Monark chain rings and ones made by CWC look very similar with the only difference that I can see is that the CWC rings are perfectly flat on both sides whereas the Monark rings are concave on the back side of the teeth much like ones made by Schwinn.
The hole design cut into the standard 1” pitch Cleveland Welding sprocket and the ½” Monark sprocket are similar but CWC never produced a ½" pitch version of that sprocket while the Monark sprockets in that pattern are all ½” pitch. The Monark sprockets are thinner to fit 1/8” x ½” chain and the swaged shoulder is there to stiffen the thinner plate to keep it from bending.
