Jonny69
Senior Retro Guru
The L here is the year.
Are you sure about that? The chart we usually go to for dating Sun and Parkes frames is in this thread: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/what-year-sun-frame-beginning-d.344162/
L would be 1944/1945.
I've not seen it confirmed that having an L present as a second letter denotes a lightweight frame (e.g. EL3739 instead of E3739 on a 1939 frame). When I looked into it a couple of years ago, it looks like when FC Parkes launched the Sun bicycle company, Sun branded frames were the factory-built frames and the Parkes brand was kept for the hand-built (lightweight) frames. Someone like @keithglos might be able to confirm because he's mentioned in the past that he had dealings with FC Parkes back in the day.
L prefix points to 1963
Are you sure about that? The chart we usually go to for dating Sun and Parkes frames is in this thread: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/what-year-sun-frame-beginning-d.344162/
L would be 1944/1945.
I've not seen it confirmed that having an L present as a second letter denotes a lightweight frame (e.g. EL3739 instead of E3739 on a 1939 frame). When I looked into it a couple of years ago, it looks like when FC Parkes launched the Sun bicycle company, Sun branded frames were the factory-built frames and the Parkes brand was kept for the hand-built (lightweight) frames. Someone like @keithglos might be able to confirm because he's mentioned in the past that he had dealings with FC Parkes back in the day.