[CR]Raleigh Grand Sports Serial number

(Example: History)

Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 17:31:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
In-Reply-To: <8164f8a50611021111l78723e94q2045947ef299bff3@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: [CR]Raleigh Grand Sports Serial number

I bought the Raleigh Grand Sports recently offered to the list by member David Bean. That's right, Grand Sports, not Gran Sport. Other members confirm that the spelling of this model name varied from year to year. Having inspected this bike I am certain it is nothing other than a genuine, original, GrandSports/Gran Sport with the classic white and Laguna blue paint scheme.

However, the serial number has me puzzled. It is:

021-44-4077

And the hyphens between sets of numbers are actually stamped into the BB shell. The zeros are rounded, so they might be the letter O, except I suspect not because of one appearing in the middle of the last set of numerials.

This does not match any of the serial number schemes listed on RetroRaleighs, but there is a note there that early 70's 531 DB Gran Sports did not have letters in their serial numbers. Anyone know how to decipher this serial # ? One possible hint is that the bike has Zeus dropouts. Zeus DO's were used on the Competition in the late 60's and very early 70's before they switched to Huret, so perhaps this was the same era Zeus DO's were used on the Gran(d) Sport(s).

Regards,

Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Republic of Texas