Is this Raleigh Banana a real or fake 513c?

[Raleigh]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181468835675? ... 1423.l2648

The seat stays and seat tube are missing the red and blue stripes at the top - it looks as if it has been painted yellow (and there is a little bit of blue at the top of the seat tube where the yellow turns to black). It has all the stickers though. Is there any other way to tell?

Cheers for any help.

 

[mrgumby]

Looks like the real deal to me. Forks look right.

Frame has been resprayed, like you say. I wonder why, big dent underneath maybe?

 

[David B]

Re:

Integral cast fork crown, pump peg on back of head tube, 2 x water bottle mounts and Raleigh "laurel wreath" Handbuilt Lightweight decal above gear levers all suggest a genuine 531c Banana replica to me. Definitely not the "gas pipe" version.

Re. the repainted stays - I'm wondering if there may have been a repair to the seat cluster area at some point. Did Banana replica frames have the same "RALEIGH" serif script-embossed seatstay caps (which this bike lacks) as other 531 Raleighs of this era*?

David

*Present on both my previous Quadra and my current Gemini 531 winter bikes.

 

[MrW]

I'd say it is definitely a Team Competition, and someone grabbed themselves a bargain!

 

[Raleigh]

I'd say it is definitely a Team Competition, and someone grabbed themselves a bargain!

The reserve wasn't met.

I didn't bother bidding in the end - seemed odd to me that they had painted that bit of yellow and it was too far to check it out.

Cheers for the help above.

 

[MrW]

Apologies, I didn't notice that.

To avoid any confusion, and to the best of my knowledge there were 3 'catalogue' variants of this bike:

1) 1988 531c Team Competition:



2) 1988 18-23 Team Raleigh Banana 12:



3) 1990 Team Raleigh:




Points to note:

The 531c bike has a slightly different paint scheme to the 18-23 'gas pipe' bikes, in so much that the entire top tube and tops of the seat stays and seat post are yellow, as per the bike ridden by the Raleigh Banana Team of the day.

The 1990 bike lost it's 'Banana' decals and is simply called the Team Raleigh.

 

[David B]

The 1990 bike lost it's 'Banana' decals and is simply called the Team Raleigh.

By that time the banana importers had switched allegiance to Falcon under the management of Keith Lambert. Not sure why Nottingham carried on turning out the colour scheme though, market demand or maybe an over-stock of part built machines? Just to confuse things even further, Falcon brought out a cheapish replica of their Team Banana bike around this time (don't think they did a posher 531 version though as the Brigg plant badged its better road bikes as Holdsworth at the time).

David

 

[Raleigh]

Thanks for that MrW - so the one on eBay was also missing the banana sticker on the top tube.

It's a shame, I really want one of these! They don't pop up that often.

 

[MrW]

No problem

I've yet to see a 531c framed one with the Banana decal on it!

Maybe previous owners just couldn't live with the word banana on their bikes

Plus, the Team Competition came with team sponsor decals which you could choose to apply or not..

 

[DrewSavage]

Talking of which, has anyone seen this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1375029755

Been on eBay with a 'buy it now' of £500, the seller keeps dropping the price, lots of work but it's basically lipstick on a pig, isn't it? With an 18-23 frame?