Found (one of) my grails. 1985 Stumpjumper Team

[cvdubya]

Re: Found (one of) my grails. 1986 Stumpjumper Team

Nice find. Is it a 1986 serial number. I've heard the 86s had a bit better tire clearance than the 85, but I've never confirmed that.

I gotta finish mine. I've had it for years.

It's was actually trying to figure that out this morning and I think it may be a 1985.

There's one on the Mombat website that is listed as a 1985 with serial number 857009

My serial number is much earlier at 851236 and clearance is tight near the chainstay where the brake is mounted with period correct 1.95 Ground Control tires.

 

[jimi911]

Re:

85 would likely be the year. I don't know if I have seen a 86 stamped Team.

The serial numbers are sort of goofy. There's no way they are simply sequential and MOMBATS is the 7009th. These were the first MTBs specialized made in the USA so they are far fewer in number. I would think in the 100s given how hard they are to find. The shop making them was also turning out special specialized CX and road bikes as well I think so perhaps it's a mixed bag of numbers. Maybe theres a month or batch code in the serial number ... I don't know. It be cool to get a data base going and figure that out.

My Team and your team likely lived on the same rack in 1985. I've got 851245.

 

[cvdubya]

Re: Re:

85 would likely be the year. I don't know if I have seen a 86 stamped Team.

The serial numbers are sort of goofy. There's no way they are simply sequential and MOMBATS is the 7009th. These were the first MTBs specialized made in the USA so they are far fewer in number. I would think in the 100s given how hard they are to find. The shop making them was also turning out special specialized CX and road bikes as well I think so perhaps it's a mixed bag of numbers. Maybe theres a month or batch code in the serial number ... I don't know. It be cool to get a data base going and figure that out.

My Team and your team likely lived on the same rack in 1985. I've got 851245.

It's was wondering how they numbered the Teams because there's no way there are 7000+ of them, and certainly not many to be found online. I did email Specialized yesterday and they got back to me this morning. They don't have records dating back that far so they can't tell me an approximate number made. I also emailed Mombat about the Team on their site trying to dig up a little more info but haven't heard back from them yet.

That's pretty cool how extremely close our bikes are in serial number!

 

[cvdubya]

Re: Found (one of) my grails. 1986 Stumpjumper Team

And these Teams were still made in Japan. I don't think they made any S Works or Team in the US until they made frames out of M2, and I think all M2 was made in USA. My 1993 M2 S Works is USA and so is my 1996 M2 Comp.

My 1985 Team has a "Japan" sticker on the inside of the seat tube and in my extra decal set there is a Japan sticker there too. If I'm not mistaken I think all Tange Prestige Stumpjumpers were made in Japan but I'm not positive.

 

[Gaddmeister]

Re:

So cool! Very lucky find. Enjoy!

 

[jimi911]

Re:

The original road test mentions they are built I the same shop as their competition Allez bikes. There's a FB thread somewhere where the designer of the frame mentions a US builder. I don't know for sure ... it's all second hand info.

 

[cvdubya]

Re: Re:

The original road test mentions they are built I the same shop as their competition Allez bikes. There's a FB thread somewhere where the designer of the frame mentions a US builder. I don't know for sure ... it's all second hand info.

I really don't know to be fully honest. I'm just basing my guess on the previous Tange Prestige bikes I've had and the "japan" sticker on my pink Team.

I've had 4 or 5 other Prestige frames and they were all made in Japan. My 91 steel S Works was also made in Japan but I'm not sure what tubing it is, I think I read it's "custom guage tubing' or something like that so who knows. It'd be nice to compile a spreadsheet of available information on these bikes since even Specialized doesn't seem to have records of anything more than 5 years old.

 

[jimi911]

It could be the tubing is made in Japan, which is where Tange Prestige was from.

I really don't know for sure. The serial number stampings are totally different on the Team than on the standard Stumpy. They are hand stamped, not machine. I'll see if I can find that thread. It was a few years ago.

I keep wondering about the serial numbers. These are the ones I know of:

851245
857009
851108
851236
851170

1985 for sure

Maybe the 2nd number is the month or batch# and the next 3 are the frame number. I wonder if there are any other 3rd numbers other than 1s and 7s. If there's only 1s and 7s with nothing sequential in between its probably not batch and that would make sense as they probably produced the majority in January 85 to sell that year.

So year _ _ Month/Batch _ and frame number (of that month/batch) _ _ _


Another possibility is that the 4th number is actually the size. MOMBAT's is a 20. I think mine is a 21. If it is size, it may be also that the last 3 digits represent the number of the size built also in that month or batch (I think Sandvik did it like that BiTD).

Fun to speculate.

 

[cvdubya]

I feel like a dummy now that I even thought for a minute mine was a 86. I should have known it was an 85 by the serial number since the other 8 or 9 1988-1996 stumpys I have or had all started with the first two numbers being the year. The new bikes aren't like that.

It's kind of a shame that even Specialized themselves can't help out with any information on such an important piece of their history but my emails probably get sent to some kid that's 25 years old and really doesn't care to dig into it a little bit lol.

You're right about 1 and 7 being the only third number either of us have seen. I wonder if they ran a certain amount at the beginning of 1985 and those were designated "1", maybe less than 1000 made in the first run and the "7" designation was for the second, possibly smaller run? Who knows. It'll be fun to try and keep track of what we can find though.


Cory

 

[cherrybomb]

Re:

1 & 7.

January & July?