New Member w/Gardengate Nortons

Re: New Member w/Gardengate Nortons (Inter for sale)

Hi "Lurkingclass",

all you need to do is log on to the Norton Owners Club website, click on NOC shop link on the left side of the homepage, then click on "factory records certificate", then choose singles or twins, pay your money & all will be done.

Dont believe the BS about inaccuracies on the NOC dating, no one has gotten 3 different bits of info from 3 different sites. I know several of these researchers personally & the hundreds of volunteer hours spent pouring over the hand written notes with a magnifier , is amazing how much & how accurate the info is. I have used this service 5 times myself, and know of a dozen or so others who were very happy with the results.


Skip Brolund

Re: New Member w/Gardengate Nortons (Inter for sale)

skipsoldbikes said:

Dont believe the BS about inaccuracies on the NOC dating, no one has gotten 3 different bits of info from 3 different sites. I know several of these researchers personally & the hundreds of volunteer hours spent pouring over the hand written notes with a magnifier , is amazing how much & how accurate the info is. I have used this service 5 times myself, and know of a dozen or so others who were very happy with the results.

Click to expand...

You obviously haven't investigated Commando production dates - there are at least 3 different publically published lists, and give 3 different results !!
Although broad agreement for the bulk of bikes, its only numbers around year changeovers that are so uncertain. ?
As well as the year changeover points not actually being explained...

Re: New Member w/Gardengate Nortons (Inter for sale)

It is the VMCC in England that holds the original Norton records, and they don't charge their members to get information from them, maybe it is time to join.....

It was quite a while ago that the Science Museum sold copies of the records when it had them, one correspondent of mine who has a copy says it is getting faded and hard to read now.

Ken McIntosh in N.Z. has a copy too besides the copy the NOC has. I don't know how many were sold in total.

The one Norton of mine that I sent into all three of these sources had a person's name attached to them. Ken McIntosh said the name was "Mr. Hele". Oh great I thought, a famous name had something to do with my bike! A few years later I sent the same number in to the NOC to cross check McIntosh and they said the name was "Mr. Kell". So now I did not know anything like the man with two watches right? I made acquaintances with the third party who had a copy of the factory records, Frank, he put a first name on and said the person was Doug Hele.

On top of mis-reading the records, the personnel of the NOC will take the liberty of personally adding their own thought to the record of your bike, this practice is not proffesional and this can mislead owners.

I sent a number of one particular Model 88 Norton into the NOC and the person in charge of the Heavy Twins records said that it indeed was a model 88, and the only option it had listed was "Daytona 88", which he let me know "was a camshaft special for the American market" , which is wrong on more than one level, they simply filled in what they were ignorant of with whatever was in their head.

So not only is the information you get from those interpreting the records subject to outright error, on top of that these humans will even screw it up worse adding their personal opinions.

This is why the best job that could be done is to get a photographic copy of the section of the records of your bike, that way you and it's future owners can do the interpreting and error making for themselves.

Re: New Member w/Gardengate Nortons (Inter for sale)

Having seen samples of the written factory records for myself, I'd comment that that tiny o-so-neatly-written-script lends itself to say almost anything you want it to - at first glance, some of it made more sense reading it as Latin !

It should also be noted that all the factory records were originally recorded on a build card - one for each bike.
With all the details of what went into each bike recorded.
The card number matches the build number stamped into the crankcases. (prior to it getting an engine number).
The card followed its bike around as the build progressed.
These were later transcribed into the factory ledger, when the bike was finished and it was shipped.
So there is another level of potential mistakes ?
The factory build cards no longer exist, they didn't survive...