Decal shape?

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rafiki

Retired Brit living in Spain
Location
Seville
I'm looking at buying a used Brompton and it seems that earlier models have an oval Brompton decal on the top tube and later models a rectangular one. Is that correct and which year did the change occur?
 

berlinonaut

Veteran
Location
Berlin Germany
The oval decals were introduced for the titanium models when they hit the market in 2005 and limited to them. Steel Bromptons had rectangular ones from the beginning until today. Both types of deacl have changed in design somewhat over time, this could theoretically be used as a rough indicator for the age of the bike. In practice not so much as you'd have to see both sides of the frame and decals can be bought as a spare, so the decal design may not correlate with the bike's age. Furthermore sometimes ti Bromptons got rectangular decals from factory for whatever reason (I own one of those, bought new). Steel Bromptons with an oval decal are either former ti-Bromptons that got robbed of their ti-parts or the decal was bought aftermarket.
 

steveindenmark

Legendary Member
The oval decals were introduced for the titanium models when they hit the market in 2005 and limited to them. Steel Bromptons had rectangular ones from the beginning until today. Both types of deacl have changed in design somewhat over time, this could theoretically be used as a rough indicator for the age of the bike. In practice not so much as you'd have to see both sides of the frame and decals can be bought as a spare, so the decal design may not correlate with the bike's age. Furthermore sometimes ti Bromptons got rectangular decals from factory for whatever reason (I own one of those, bought new). Steel Bromptons with an oval decal are either former ti-Bromptons that got robbed of their ti-parts or the decal was bought aftermarket.
I had to laugh at this. I ride Moto Guzzi motorbikes. A popular addage for Guzzis is "The eagle always faces forward".

However, the eagle emblem on the petrol tank does not always face forward. Occasionally the guy putting them on suffers from brain fade or runs out of an emblem for one side or another.

So occasionally the eagle faces backwards. Good to see we have something similar in Bromptons.
 
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