I recently received from Tony Colegrave in UK a rebuilt B15 for my 1962 Schwinn Superior. I can now add mine to the many CR testimonials as to the outstanding quality of Tony's work.
He completely replaced the leather on the dated 1962 original Brooks B15 from the Superior, and reused the old style brass rear badge from the original saddle. Tony has the correct stamps to stamp the sides of most Brooks saddles. Cost was 100 GBP plus shipping. Now granted, one can buy an NOS B15 on eBay for that price or less, but it was worth it to me to have the frame and rear badge original to the bike, the frame being nicely chromed, with chrome in excellent condition, and bearing the correct '62 date stamp on the cantle plate. Most Brooks saddles do not have a date stamp, and more recent B15's have black painted rails, so the chance of finding an excellent chromed B15 with '62 stamp on eBay were next to none. Plus the frame and rear badge, at least, are original to this bike.
The return of the saddle led to some correspondence with Tony, in which he expressed the opinion that the B15 that came with my white Raleigh Pro MkI bought on eBay a couple of years ago was almost certainly not original, it being highly likely a Raleigh Pro would have had the old pre-Team smaller rivet Brooks Professional. So I began looking through my stock for a Brooks Pro suitable for the Raleigh.
I have several smaller rivet Brooks Pros bought new in the late 90's, when I think they may still have been in production. I had noted that the "smaller" copper rivets on these, while smaller than the Team Pro, were clearly larger than the steel rivets used on the B17 Standard, or indeed all B17's prior to the Champion Special. Also larger than the copper rivets on high end Ideales like mod 90. I thought perhaps these 90's Brooks Pro rivets were also larger than those on the 60's/70's Pro (Tony tells me the Brooks Professional was first introduced in UK in 1962, earlier than I had thought.) However, comparing the 90's Pros to several 60's/ 70's Pros, I find that they all have the same size rivets, intermediate between the Team Pro and the high end Ideales.
There is however, a detail of the late 90's Pro that is different from the early Pros, or at least from the early Pros I have. The nose of the leather cover on the more recent Pro, like that of the Team Pro and most recent Brooks, is fairly long, and partly obscures the copper nose bracket, when viewed from the front. On the older Pro, however, the leather nose was cut shorter, such the the nose bracket is completely visible from the front, like most Ideale saddles. Thus a newer non-Team Pro is not quite correct for a 1969/1970 Raleigh Pro MkI.
I did find I have three correct old Pros, including the very first Brooks saddle I ever owned, bought as an original dealer upgrade with my new 1973 LeJeune F-70 (PX-10 equivalent). This saddle has seen many thousands of km, on more bikes than I now recall. It had lost shape and I thought it was simply worn out, until I tried soaking it in a bucket of water as recommended by Tony some months ago. It was miraculously resurrected and did several hundred km on my Romic Tourer.
The only problem was that the nose bracket has become worn making it hard to achieve the desired tension. Unlike Ideale saddles, which have a cross piece in the front of the nose bolt, Brooks saddles usually rely on a raised "bump" in the nose bracket to stop the nose bolt rotation as the nose nut is tightened. On old saddles, the bracket "bump" can become worn down such that the bolt rotates freely, making it difficult to tension the saddle as fully as desired. However, when I mentioned this some months ago, someone, I think Chuck Schmidt, said that the standard solution to this is to cut a slot in the back end of the nose bolt with a Dremel Tool, then use a screwdriver blade in that slot to hold the bolt from rotating while the nut is tightened. Today I removed the old Pro from the Romic Tourer, and applied the recommended treatment with the Dremel Tool. Piece of cake, didn't even have to detension the bolt. Using the screwdriver in the new slot, I easily tensionsed the saddle exactly the amount I desired. Chuck, if it was you who made it, many thanks for this excellent suggestion, which I think was worth sharing with the list. If it was someone else who made the suggestion, then my thanks to you.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA