This does appear to be a "shop" Holdsworth. However, if you can see through the awful heavy paint job, the workmanship is only reasonably good. I have a shop built Holdsworth Italia Strada, #65037 (which I take to mean that it was the 37th frame made after the introduction of the new serial number system). The workmanship on 65037 is flawless, with details like tapered and pointed fork tube ends, diamond shape cut out brake bridge reinforcement, and perfect brazing. Also, as per an interview that was conducted with builder Reg Collard (somewhere on the net) the wrapover is not the clunky cast arrangement (which the shop did use) but rather a hand made wrapover made with a flat piece of steel cut, shaped and brazed to the tops of the chain stays. According to Reg Collard, this saved something on the order of 1/2 lb.
My guess would be that this was not a Reg Collard frame, but was in fact a frame made for stock by a lesser builder. IMHO. As far as the model is concerned, the Italia Strada has different fittings: Prugnat long point lugs without any scrolling, long Campy horizontal dropouts, and a different bottom bracket. Of course, you could order whatever you wanted.
Louis Schulman Tampa, Florida
David Benson wrote:
> The bulky seatstay wrapover and allen key seatbinder says this is a 'shop' frame, built for the W.F. Holdsworth shop, not a mass produced factory bike:
> http://ebay.com/
>
> Should anyone care to inquire of the seller, from 1965, the first two digits of the frame number denote the year.
>
> Not mine, no connection to the seller etc.
>
> David Benson
> Auckland, NZ
>
> http://retroride.blogspot.com
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