At 03:04 PM 2/24/2009, you wrote:
>Original Message:
>
>Subject: Re: [CR] Raleigh Professional
>Peter Kohler wrote:
> the mostly white 69/70 version
>ps. So I am still uncertain as to the origins of the M
>ark
>I, why it indeed has German colours on it,
Greetings campers and truth seekers
Apoligies in advance for any hurt feelings or bruised egos. Not my intention. Just been editing a lot lately. Brain is stuck in nit-picky detail mode.
I don't know why this German colors story keeps getting passed
around, but I'll do what I can to cast doubt on it again. German
colors would be, from top to bottom, black, red, yellow.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/
>Zeus drop-outs
Also some with Campy drops. Both of mine, D and E serials, have Campy drops. Illustrating again the old Raleigh mantra, "specifications subject to change whenever we feel like it."
>It's, just well, intriguing and neat looking. Which I guess is why
>it found its way into my house.
Which is why I've always kept mine, too. Congrats on the new toy Peter.
And Don Gillies wrote:
"Incidentally, I doubt that anyone owns a 1970 Mark I. Beause that would mean that in 1971, the Mark II AND the Mark III were both released in the same year!"
Well kids: White Pro serials are D and E, but appeared only in the 69 catalog.
MK II Pros were F serials, but appeared in the 70 catalog, Still waiting for somebody to show me a MK II that's an E serial. I have # 6, and it's F 1134. That's waaaaay up the F line for # 6 in a series. #29 was F1094. #49 was F1084, higher in the series of 500, but lower serial numbers than #6. #509 in the "Limited Edition series of 500" was F2997, and I've heard that there may have been as many as 525 bikes in the series of only "500". Are y'all getting dizzy yet?
MK III Pros (brown with chrome stays) were also F serials, just higher numbers in the F series than the MK IIs.
MK IV Pros (blue) that I've seen were G serials and up. Also some A serials. Also a change from the script graphics to the block capital letter graphics somewhere mid stream in that G serial series. I've seen only block capitals on the As, but I haven't seen everything yet. Maybe there's a script A frame out there waiting to destroy what remains of my fragile sense of order. Bring it on.
I've seen (and owned) A, G, and H serial "1973" model RRAs. They're real. I swear, I didn't inhale. I've seen A, G, and H serials on other "high end" models that were basically 1973 model frame/colors/decals, prior to the introduction of the W system. I don't know what day in 1974 the W system started. How much overlap was there with H serial frames? Doesn't matter.
Dat's da facts. Make whatever sense you can or want to from those inconsistencies. They provide some general guidelines to work with, but that's all. Trying to apply atomic clock precision to general time frames (and probably some whimsical decisions on the part of Raleigh) is just going to give you ulcers and migraines. Raleigh never claimed there was any correlation between the calendar year, or the catalog year, or the production year, or the model year, or any other time frame in Raleigh World for those early serial number series. WE keep trying to make (force) those correlations, to bring some sort of order to our little universe, but nothing Raleigh ever did has to make any sense. Once I accepted that reality, I slept much better at night.
Additional data points always welcome. Have fun out there.
Larry "all answers questioned" Osborn Bruceton Mills, West Virginia USA