Tonard frames were produced by a company of that name in the south of Engla nd, possibly on the outskirts of London. The company was owned by TONy HARDwick and was better known for building ac cessories such as pannier racks. The frames were generally well and carefully built, but were possibly a lit tle unimaginative in their design. That said they were very typical of Brit ish road racing frames of the mid-70s onwards, the fast-back seat-stay conf iguration was popular, but Tony also did a simple and neat plated wrap-over .. Lugs were more often that not long-point windowless Prugnat , crowns w ere simple Cinelli or Bocama..and I remember that he liked to use the Campa g vertical drop-outs. The frames I came across always had very elegant shal lowly raked forks. To sum up, I suppose that the general impression was of understated minimalistic elegance.
I suppose that their simplicity contrasted greatly from the typical more decorative Italian style of that period.
One possibility about this frame comes to mind. Tony was married to an Ital ian woman, and they did import certain lines of Italian accessories. Perhap s some Italian-built frames wetre also brought in and transferred up as TON ARDs.
Perhaps the origin of this particular frame might be found in the bottom br acket ie is it BSA or Italian threaded. Tonard was never a major name in fr ames and I cannot imagine Tony ordering large batches of frames in order to obtain the BSA bracket threading.
Norris Lockley, Settle UK