The thing I really like about this frame is the graceful style of the rear fork-ends. This is the first time I've seen a set that had the same rounded contours as forward facing, horizontal, road drop-outs. It's a small detail but really very appealing.
It's a shame this is such a large frame size. Otherwise I'm
certain there would be dozens of bidders (myself included).
Cheers,
Fred rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
> I think that W & E Pollard were based in or around the
> Wolvehampton
> area, one of that city's artisan framebuilders along with
> Percy
> Stallard.
>
> The shop was certainly active in the 50s and 60s and the
> frames enjoyed
> a very good reputation for their build quality.At that time
> in my life I
> lived maybe 150 miles away from Wolverhampton and the West
> Midlands, in
> the industrial area of the West Riding.. up north, so to
> speak.. and it
> was customary to have the local framebuilder make your frame
> up to
> specification unless, of course, you fancied a Paris, a
> Hetchins, a
> Bates, a Gillott or any of the other London-based builders
> who
> advertised each week in "Cycling" magazine. Some Rotraxes
> migrated north
> from Southampton too.
>
> It was curious and I suppose it spoke volumes for the quality
> of the
> Pollard frames that good reports about them had spread into
> the pelotons
> around Bradford and Leeds who rode mainly on JRJ, Woodrup,
> Baines,
> Whittaker and Mapplebeck (later to be Pennine),
> Ellis-Briggs (including Brian Robinson), Carlton, JT Rogers,
> Hilton
> Wrigley, Elsegood, Temple, Geoff Clark, and Jack Taylor
> frames.
>
> I only saw Pollards very rarely.. the first one belonging by
> chance, and
> not design, to a school mate called " Brian Pollard".
>
> The Ebay Pollard really does need that hellenic rear stay
> configuration
> in order to try to bring a degree of stiffness into the 63cm
> frame, as
> those fairly "pencil" stays look a little too slender to my
> eye. Maybe
> if the frame was a dedicated track frame rather than a
> dual-purpose
> fixed-gear road model, the stays might have been beefier.
>
> Can anyone out there (Hilary.. are you listening) confirm
> that the term
> Hellenic derived from the name of a frame-builder who, it is
> claimed,
> first popularised this design.
>
> For the record only .. another frame-builder from
> Wolverhampton whose
> work did reach northwards and was to be found in selected
> shops, was
> Jack Hateley. Jack's frames curiously, never seem to surface
> these days.
>
> Norris Lockley..from a fairly sunny Settle, but still missing
> those
> French vines.
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