Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

Any info on frame KS2294 ?

Paul - Yes! It is a 1954 PRF frame, it is missing from the despatch books. There were 5,420 of these frames made and 1.8% are duplicated with about 4% of the numbers missing. I assume it exists, which would not be unusual for missing frames, do you have an engine number with it or in a previous life?

Thats sound interesting Roger!
The engine reads: PB 1401

PB 1401 went to Stokvis in March 1954 with frame number GB5 C54, which is the same as the gearbox number and explains why the frame number is missing, sorry was missing, now found.

The gearbox reads this number! So this is a all original bike I assume?

I would assume so, we can never be 100% but I think 99%

The bike became road legal and got a license plate on the 13th of april 1954. All the other components like magneto, dynamo are stamped 1954. The same for the gearbox.

Roger Gwynn wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2024 9:36 am Paul - Yes! It is a 1954 PRF frame, it is missing from the despatch books. There were 5,420 of these frames made and 1.8% are duplicated with about 4% of the numbers missing. I assume it exists, which would not be unusual for missing frames, do you have an engine number with it or in a previous life?

Roger does this mean these 5.420 PRF frames where for 1954 only? In that case 1.8% double stamped and 4% ‘lost’ frames in the despatch books sounds like serious numbers… aprox. 97 and 216 machines?

Yes, it does.
A long time ago Ralph Hawkins started to compile a frame list so that when the original engine number is unknown it would make it easier to find the bike that the frame came from. The bikes are listed in the despatch books in engine number order and frames are added at random and can be a long way apart, sometimes by more than a 1,000, making them difficult to find. As Ralph wasn't very good with computers he had entered them in a text document and I converted it into an Excell spreadsheet. Over the years I have continued to expand this listing with a little help from a couple of others, so that it now includes all singles from 1946-58 including competition and a few others.
Of course having all these numbers enables lots of statistics to be compiled including duplicates and to an extent missing numbers. There are not many duplicate engines because of the way they are entered and although we know of a couple of factory frame indexes it would appear they either tolerated the duplicates or ceased keeping frame indexes. Missing numbers, like yours, do turn up and some of the duplicated frame numbers are resolved and usually turn out to be an error by the clerk but not all. Missing numbers are a bit difficult to quantify as the number of gaps tends to increase towards the end of the year and it is difficult to know when to stop counting the gaps!
There are now 83,885 frames listed with 2.5% duplicated, PRF are the worst at 3%, rigid at 2.5% and plunger 1.7%.

Roger very good work and most interesting, hats off! What will happen when a lost,- or duplicated number turns up? Will it be adapted in case someone asks for a dating certificate?