Anyone know what my frame is please?

Hi,
I've been lurking for a while, really enjoy this site but never needed to ask anthing before.
Now I've got a NOS frame that I can't identify.
So I thought I'd better actually sign up and see if any of you knew.

The frame is a hardtail MTB,
A sticker says Prestige cromo double butted tubes Tange

Another one says made in Taiwan

There is a number on the bottom of the downtube, by the b-bracket GC5800Q

There is also one on the bb shell, WS7050054

Its a kind of silver coloured paint and theres no stickers

Suggestions so far have been Marin and trek.
Not convinced on Marin though as I used to have an eldridge grade and this is quite different.

I'll post some pics later on as well.

Thanks
JTD

Pics help greatly..

Ok,
got pics now.
Hopefully should help recognise it.
Headset is 1 1/8 btw.

If you can't recognise it please comment on what fork would be appropiate from looking at the head angle.
I Have a 100mm sus for it, but I think 80mm would be wiser.
I understand that if the front is to steep rigid will be the way, but if anyones a good judge of this please let me know what you think.
Cheers
Jtd

pics aint working

Sorry, forgot the pics,
here they are.

I can't tell you what it is, although I'd like better pics including one of the drive side. It doesn't look like a Marin and I'm pretty sure it isn't a Trek - they tended to use True Temper tubes IIRC.

To be honest, the fact that it's made out of such a good tubeset as Tange Prestige tends to rule out most of the big-name manufacturers like that. As they tended to trade on their name, they didn't invest as much in the tubes as smaller manufacturers did. But on the other hand, people like Merlin, Ribble and Handsomedog used to knock out Taiwan-built frames made of good tubes for around the £199 mark that were much better than what Trek, Scott etc were offering.

The fact that it has snake stays makes me think it's no earlier than 98 or 99. And the fact that it's made out of Prestige probably means it's no later than that either, so I'll guess 98ish, but it's only a guess, others may well know much better than me.

And if it is around that time, then I would agree that 70/80mm is the ideal travel for the fork.

Thanks, that's a good start for me.
I'll take some more pics and see if that helps.
Sounds like I can build as I wished though.
It would just be nice to know what it is, although I may never know.

Got a couple more pics now.
Fork still hasn't appeared so it still is only half a bike at the moment.






Pics should get bigger if you click on them.

Sorry if they don't, I'm slowly working out pics on forums as I go.

yeah looks like one of the merlin cycles frames to me
they did quite a few nice ones, the malt series etc
should build up nice & light

Thanks for that,
I'll see if I can work out which one.

It is quite light, but I've got the wrong chainset at the minute, weighs as much as the frame.
Soon though It'll be lovely.
I'd like an 80mm Pace on it and some flat bars.
It's having a 100mm Marzocchi Axel for a month or so though as it was the cheapest thing I could find.

It's going to be full deore 9spd drive though as budget is a big factor in this build.