Help with a Carlton

Hi everyone, been reading posts on hear for ages (your guys are great!) but this is the first of my own.

I was hoping for some help identifying a Carlton my neighbour gave me last weekend. I'm trying to find out a two things: 1) the model; 2) the relative quality of the bike and components.



From an almost totally scratched off sticker I think I can make out Carlton club (clubman?) on top of some Olympic rings.

From what I can tell it's from the mid 60s. It's all chrome but was sprayed in metallic light brown paint with some green on the seat post and at the front. The frame number is on the BB (3005432 X2295). Fairly nice spec with Resilion hubs ( 558 rear), GB Courier 66 brakes and dunlop special lightweight rims. Simplex gears (anyone know if they're any good)? Any idea who the make of the crankset? All I can see is an N stamped on the inside (and a 2 on one and 5a on the other).

No stickers really left on the frame so difficult to tell if it's Reynolds, but assume it must be to have gone to the effort of having it chromed! Any thoughts on that? Where the rear stay join the top of the seat post also looks quite interesting.

Some more pictures would help. Carlton introduced the Clubman with Capella lugs in 1959, but an image of these lugs would help. The Olympic rings device was used on some Catalina models too... The parts you decscribe sound about right for the period, for instance GB Courier 66s were used from c1961. Does the frame have a number? It will be on the left hand rear stay on the non-drive side.

Thanks spokesman, i'll take a few more pictures tonight and add them to picassa (you did see there were 9 or 10 there in the album didn't you)? The lugs look pretty plain to me, certainly not those elaborate curly ones!

'N' on the chainset - Nicklin?

Photos will help

Ok, think i've fixed the problem with the pictures, had prviacy settings set too high. Hopefully this will work. Let me know how many you can now see.

https://picasaweb.google.com/wherespaul ... Oetaq_mwE#

Interesting, looks to be a large amount of chrome in places. Those are plainer lugs too so not Capella or the standard Carlton lugs. The seat stays remind of something a little later towards the latter part of the 60s... Any sign of the frame number? At first glance I would say a Criterium from around 68/69..., maybe a Cobra... The Catalina was offered in chrome too along with the Constellation, but its not one of those...

Other names that spring to mind from the late 60s/early 70s are the Primes du Course and the Contra la Montre models...

Yes, it's all chrome, the whole frame and forks! And i'm amazed how much of the rust is coming off with with most the chrome in tact! The only frame number I can find is on the bottom bracket as in my first post. It says 3005432 and just below it says X2295.

Check the rear stay.

I've just checked again and there's nothing on either side of the rear stay or on the top of the seat post. I saw on a website that there was a short period in the late 60s where there was just a 7 digit number on the bb.

"From 1968 to 1972 two numbering systems were used. The majority of models had simple numbers, up to seven digits, sometimes with leading zeros, stamped on the left rear dropout, at the top of the seat tube to the rear or under the bottom bracket. I do not have sufficient data to analyse these numbers and relate them to specific years."

http://www.carltoncycles.me.uk/details/dating.htm

I've just checked again and there's nothing on either side of the rear stay or on the top of the seat post. I saw on a website that there was a short period in the late 60s where there was just a 7 digit number on the bb.

"From 1968 to 1972 two numbering systems were used. The majority of models had simple numbers, up to seven digits, sometimes with leading zeros, stamped on the left rear dropout, at the top of the seat tube to the rear or under the bottom bracket. I do not have sufficient data to analyse these numbers and relate them to specific years."

http://www.carltoncycles.me.uk/details/dating.htm