I bought a Brooks Professional Select new in 1983, and the name badge has worn to black; I've also seen this on other used Brooks saddles with the same badge, so I think that this is a charecteristic of this particular badge. Brooks also produced some saddles with embossed alumnium badges which were painted black. I suspect that these dated to just after the war, when brass was in short supply over here, but aluminium was available.
Neil foddering Weymouth, Dorset, England
> Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:40:28 -0400
> From: johnb@oxford.net
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR] blacked-out Brooks logos
>
> Are you sure the nameplates are painted out and not just worn from
> cleaning and rubbing so only the black paint is left? I have one here
> (date 73) that the nameplate is black, but I can still make out the name
> in shiny letters. Seems the white (or silver?) printing has just worn
> off. I'm no Brooks expert, but I've seen other saddles with embossed
> nameplates where this doesn't happen.
>
> tom.ward@juno.com wrote:
> > I've ended up with several Brooks saddles over the years that had had their logo-plates painted out (solid black), and seemingly long ago. My question is: was this "a fashion"? Was it some kind of anti-glare politeness in the Criterium? Maybe representative of a general antithetical feeling about logos and branding--or perhaps a hopeful anti-theft measure, i.e. camouflage?
> > Was there a dialogue about such a practice at the time? I'm a few years too young to have been part of the zeitgeist. I was riding a road bike in the Seventies, but it was a Junior (I do know that it was french, and that my older brother painted it something very like Raleigh's bronze-green because he was painting our grandfather's former '66 Jeep CJ5 that color, and had left-over paint. He also installed Suntour derailleurs.). We also painted my first cub-scout "pinewood derby" car at the same time (bronze-green metal-flake with gold mist fade "windscreen"; I was twelve in 1979....
> > Is there anyone here who actually painted out a Brooks nameplate back "in period", and who might comment upon their younger self?
> > Tom Ward
> > Bonita, California, USA
> >
>
> --
> John Betmanis Woodstock, Ontario Canada