Duncan Granger wrote:
http://www.ebay.co.uk item # 7168141869. This does not look like a Blue Riband to me. Never seen a filet brazed Blue Riband.
I have read that some Hobbs transfers were used on later bikes manufactured by others (Hobbs stopped making their own frames in 1954 or so, if I recall correctly). So is this one of those frames? If not, what is it?
The 1952 Hobbs catalogue lists 3 Blue Riband models - The Continental, The Professional, and The Championship. It appears they were all lugged frames, and there was no filet brazed option offered, which does not mean that it was not offered in 1948/9, but unlikely. The head badge transfer is not a distinctive Blue Riband one either, so it appears the frame has been refinished, and the wrong transfers applied. The frame appears to be designed to have a separate seat tube pinch clamp rather than one built into the seat lug, features I have previously seen on Holdsworth and Claud Butler brazed frames, but not on a Blue Riband.
This frame really needs the expert eye of Mervyn Cook to explain more about it.
Peter Brown, Lincolnshire, England