Re: [CR]Raleigh Oval Headbadge

(Example: Bike Shops:R.E.W. Reynolds)

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:13:10 -0500
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "Larry Osborn" <losborn2@wvu.edu>
Subject: Re: [CR]Raleigh Oval Headbadge
In-Reply-To: <20040110031747.32285.qmail@web21324.mail.yahoo.com>


At 07:17 PM 1/9/04 -0800, you wrote:
>When I bought my new 1970 Super Course the dealer
>(long defunct La Jolla Cyclery) pointed out the
>special oval badge and said it was to commemorate a
>special anniversary, which certainly led me to believe
>it was a one-year-only feature.
>
>Now I see in the oval headbadge in both the '69 and
>'70 catalogs, and the "regular" heron headbadge used
>earlier and later.
>
>So I believed the proprietor's "anniversary" line for
>thirty four years- what is the real story on these
>oval badges?
>
>Thanks
>
>Tom Forhan
>Takoma Park MD

Greetings campers and Raleigh-phobes Usually have no trouble remembering what I have tucked away in the archives, but apparently I've been playing too much with my favorite Christmas gift, my new Ronco inside-the-shell brain scrambler. So now, days after the original discussion started about the oval headbadges, I remembered I had an older British Raleigh catalog with a page promoting the "new" Raleigh emblem, the oval, which was why I bought the catalog in the first place. Alas, no real explanation as to why they felt the need to come up with a new one beyond the following marketing hype(-erbola):

"All over the world, the famous Raleigh Herson's Head symbol is known as the mark of supreme quality in bicycles.... now, on the new Raleigh Gran sport and Raleigh Sprite models, it appears in a new, vivid form - more colourful, more in keeping with the new age of speed that these cycles are brilliantly designed and built for!"

Can I have an "AMEN"? (And since when do I use the world "Alas"? I'll blame Ronco for that too.). Sorry, catalog never got onto Retro Raleighs because I was never able to date it accurately. My best guess has been that it may have been a 75th anniversary thing. ~1962 or 63. One would think they would have said something about that in the literature as they did do for the decades (70 years, 80 years, blah blah blah), but I long ago quit trying to make any serious sense out of anything Raleigh did. Oval badges appeared on the upper models in the line until sometime in 1971. I've never seen one later than that.

Larry "in a new, vivid, more colorful form, for no apparent reason" Osborn Morgantown WV