Addendum :
Seat Tube Top near Seatpost, 73-76 'Made in England', gold with black outline goes about 2.5" from seatlug shoreline, 0 - 0.5" in front of the only(73-74) or 1st(75-76) centerpull cable stop.
======== Pictures and info about some of the rarer decals ========
0. Most raleigh artwork are silk screened _transfers_, meaning paint that was backwards silk-screened onto clay-backed transfer paper. You varnish the top tube, apply the transfer, rub it down, wait a day, then wet it with a sponge and the clay melts, allowing you to remove the paper, leaving "P_r_o_f_e_s_s_i_o_n_a_l_" behind in raised letters. Not hand painted. On my restorations, for this one decal, I opted for cut vinyl so it would stick up like an original transfer. The only stuff that's not transfers is the Reynolds seat-tube decal (1974-76) and the 'Carlton, Race-Proved' decal.
I have the following EPS artwork for top-tube :
C_o_m_p_e_t_i_t_i_o_n_ I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l_
I could do a "P_r_o_f_e_s_s_i_o_n_a_l_", or something rare like the Carlton "C_o_n_s_t_e_l_l_a_t_i_o_n_", all i need is an "f", "s", and "P".
1. The 'Made in England' was a rare / unavailable decal, one of the decals that I produced and sold on ebay. I've never seen one NOS. Now, Michael Swantak is selling a very nice one. I gave my art to Nick Tithecote at Lloyd's cycles, who claims to have improved it and is selling it, too.
Here's my art, next to an original decal :
http://www.ece.ubc.ca/
2. The 'Reynolds Tube Co' 531-throughout decal is a very special Raleigh-specific decal. The decal is COMPLETELY SQUARE.
Here's my art, next to an original decal :
http://www.ece.ubc.ca/
I've seen exactly one 531-through decal like that was NOS, and that's precisely the copy that I bought.
Reynolds almost immediately produced a more rectangular decal, squeezing down the gold area substantially, to about 2/3rds the size in these pictures. I had a considerable ($40) investment in orignals, plus my time (20 hours) investment in the artwork, so the photo taken above was slanted / not to scale. You do not get rich doing this. I think that all told, I net'ted $150 selling 30 decal sets over a 10 month period, about $4/hour for this work.
There are currently NO reproductions of these that are readily available.
3. To the best of my knowledge, there are no sources for :
G_r_a_n S_p_o_r_t_(s)
(International) (red, 1970-72 decal)
4. I've seen many sssink.com decals. Not many are very accurate. Michael Swantak is much better.
5. If you're going to make your own decal, I recommend starting by buying a NOS decal, then scanning it with a piece of graph paper for a background.
If you have a bike, then a 2nd choice is to take maybe 5 photographs from different angles and stitch them together in illustrator or corel draw.
6. If you want a photograph of a Raleigh artwork decal, email me, I have just about all of them from this era.
7. If an ebay seller has GUTS, they will show you their decal next to an original. I do my best to hit the nail on the head, and won't sell on ebay without taking such a picture.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA