Any "Allin of Croydon" specialists out there??
- Thread starter SNight
- Start date
9 years late to this thread, but I might have some good news for you at least! My family have been an Allin family right back to the beginning. my father, my uncle my grandfather, grandmother and many others had multiple Allin machines from the 30s onwards and seemed to live in the shop from what I have been told! Whn my father passed 9years ago, he left 4 Allin machines - one of which was the original frame he had built for him in 1951 at the age of 16 (number 895), and was riding right up until he could ride no more at the age of 77, a couple of years before he died in 2014. Anyway - to your story - my uncle, who was some 8 years younger than my dad, had his frame built for him by Allin in 1962 (number 1448 - so fits with your date estimation) which my dad also came to possess when Uncle Andy gave up cycling. I have some phots of the bike which I took just before I gave it back to Uncle Andy's son a few years ago, to restore its rightful heritage. The frame has the exact same brazin on the rear stays as your frame, so look's promising as a potential Allin, as I can guarantee our Allin is genuine - it's never been out of the family since purchase! Attached are some phots of all my dad's 4 Allin's, and my uncle's bike with the stays detail and the frame number. Very similar to yours. Hope that helps.
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Sorry, just to add, the dates for the frames are all from my dad's files that I found after he died. I'm not sure he will have been spot on with his dates but they are pretty close. For instance on https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_builders/allin-cycles-croydon/ it dates frame number 1448 precisely as 1st January 1960. Strange that that is the only precise date in the article that far back, and yet the frame has been in my family all this time. I have n idea where they got the specific date from.
And anyone reading this thread who spots that my dad's 'Green Best Bike is number 2405 when the last recorded number in the Allin book is 2401 when Peter Cobb retired. I remember this happening very clearly; dad heard that Peter was retiring in 1980/81 and travelled to see him and persuaded him to build my dad one last frame before he hung up his tools. This was after he had officially retired. I believe a couple of others also did the same, which would explain the 2405 number.
My dad had a habit of doing this - in 1987 when I was 18 he went to visit Mike Compton in the New Forest, the retired Rotrax framebuilder of great reputation. Dad persuaded him to build me one last bike, which he did under the Kingston brand which was his own. I still have the bike now.
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awac
Claud Butler Fan
Thank you for sharing this frame number information. Hope you don’t mind I have copied to my post about an Allin I have just bought (and a link to this). I am trying to keep all the information I can find in one place.
Well this very nice time warp Allin turned up not far from me for sale, I had a day off, so thought why not?
The seller explained it was his father’s bike who had bought it new from Allin in the 50’s from Whitehorse Road. These pictures are from eBay because it was dark by the time I got home. I will try to get a clear shot of the frame number on the left hand drop out. Dammit, I have to go to work tomorrow and all I want to do it play!
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The seller explained it was his father’s bike who had bought it new from Allin in the 50’s from Whitehorse Road. These pictures are from eBay because it was dark by the time I got home. I will try to get a clear shot of the frame number on the left hand drop out. Dammit, I have to go to work tomorrow and all I want to do it play!
