Raleigh vintage model identification

[midlife]

I guess the frame number will nail it

 

[mercury57]

If I can find it!
It's not where I thought it would be.

 

[classic33]

Rear dropout?

 

[midlife]

Try the seat tube, vertically under the seat bolt.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I wonder at what stage in the build the Raleigh frame numbers were allocated & stamped? For some reason I'd expect the number to be stamped on completion of the fabrication, yet the frame pictured by @midlife must have been stamped before the rear stays were added, otherwise you wouldn't be able to get the tools in there! It's also odd why some were stamped on the BB and others on the seat tube itself or seat lug. Were "quality" frames (such as 531) treated differently in this respect than the run of the mill 18-23 HI-tensile ones?

 

[raleighnut]

I wonder at what stage in the build the Raleigh frame numbers were allocated & stamped? For some reason I'd expect the number to be stamped on completion of the fabrication, yet the frame pictured by @midlife must have been stamped before the rear stays were added, otherwise you wouldn't be able to get the tools in there! It's also odd why some were stamped on the BB and others on the seat tube itself or seat lug. Were "quality" frames (such as 531) treated differently in this respect than the run of the mill 18-23 HI-tensile ones?

There was a time when the 531 frames were built in a different factory (in fact in a different town) If a frame has a 'W' prefix it was built in Worksop (the Carlton factory) or then there were the SBDU frames built in Ilkeston.

 

[mercury57]

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

View attachment 435380

I've got a slack geometry mystery frame which has exactly the same style of lugs, seat stays & serial number stamp as yours. Oddly though, it does not have a headbadge (or any rivet holes I can see) and it doesn't have the holes through the frame tubes for the rod brake pivots either. It's been suggested that my frame is a Raleigh, but I can't positively identify it using old catalogues.

 

[midlife]

Ah! Looks like that period between the 60's and 1973 when Raleigh couldn't decide when what they should stamp on their frames I worked in a Raleigh 5 Star dealership in the 70's and thank God by then they had sorted their numbering system...

 

[mercury57]

Just been out in the rain on it, exciting