Can you tell the year of an S&M by it's paint?

[RyanPartridge]

I was thinking about this over in the thread with Harris's yellow Dirtbike and I decided to start a new topic...

Now I'm not saying this is an accurate technique, but I've come to notice some similarities in some of these earlier frames paint color(if it's original) and the graphics(if they're original to the frame as well) that I think can get you pretty close to ID'ing the year. Of course it's harder with the yellow, red, and chrome frames because they were always using those.

Sometimes you can tell when(approx year) they did a batch of a certain color...



Examples...minus the lighting differences I really think these are the same colors.

Alex's 1994 Holmes and my 1994 Dirtbike. Both with the same dark/forest green.




My 95 Holmes with pea soup/baby poo green color and an Oversized DB and Holmes with the same color(these ads ran in Dec/Jan 96 and Jul 96).

[RyanPartridge]

Note: Without the flash, my 94 Dirtbike is darker. And on a sunny day my Holmes is as light as those in the ads.

[harris]

well worth a try ...alex has a list of frames serials ..possibly worth adding colour then to the list
and the years might start to pop out.

[RyanPartridge]

Also, on the other thread Miko posted a dark brown 1" Dirtbike(93?). Does anyone remember any other time S&M used that color on 1" frame? I don't even think I've seen a Holmes in that color.

[RyanPartridge]

Any time I see a purple 1" S&M...it's always a 92/93 Dirtbike.

[SaMAlex]

Nice, I like it. Its not like its hard enough trying to get years from the frame numbers, so we might as well start trying to use colours!

Ive not seen a brown Holmes but a mate as a brown dirtbike in the early 90s.

I had the same mexican decal set dirtbike as the purple one (not the platformed one) in 92 or 93. My dirtbike was also purple but it was much lighter. This might well be the only colour picture I have of it.

[teamsano]

alex, was your dirtbike stock in that purple colour?

the two bikes ryan posted are different shades of purple, i recall clymer riding the lighter shade.

alex's holmes is a darker colour green than ryans dirt bike, although s+m used british racing green(like alex's) since '90.

brown dirt bikes were available in 1" because they continued to make 1" frames after the introduction of o/s.

s+m used so many shops for paint in the nineties that the bikes were available in many shades in many differing years, i had a stock yellow dirtbike in a colour of yellow ive never seen before or since.

using colours to id a frame is a pretty bad idea tbh   

[SaMAlex]

alex, was your dirtbike stock in that purple colour?

yeah man, thats the colour it came in. I got the right dropout thickened up and you can see the awful job I made of painting over the rework. Its a totally different colour!

I never really liked the purple or decal set, but I dont know why. It looks fine to me now.

[darkersomeday]

does anyone have a clue what the ral code is for ryan's holmes green?

i've been trying to work that fooker out for years!

[Miko]

I had a '92 Dirt Bike with the Budweiser decals in the same green as Ryan's.  I also had Holmes like Alex's green one, but it was an orange, I haven't seen since.  Miss that fookin' thing.

Here's a brown Holmes I nearly bought.  The buyer accepted my offer, but when it was time to get paypal info, he told me he traded it for some Hutch pedals.  Blueballed me for over a week.

[EL CID]

when I got my first holmes Chris asked me if I wanted one in UPS brown but I had to have chrome 89-90ish,and I had many of the S&M King of Bikes (budweiser)decals bithd and I cant find one.

[RyanPartridge]

That brown Holmes is fookin' evil!

[Miko]

That brown Holmes is fookin' evil!

I know.  I built my brown D.B. for my lady.  I wanted to build that Holmes so we could match dork style.  But hey, when that fell through I found MY Dirt Bike. 

Updated pics soon.

[teamsano]

miko, sell me that bike.

[SaMAlex]

Ive just found some more pics of my purple, mexican decaled dirtbike, and also my first black dirtbike. Both taken at KOC in 1991 and 1992or3. I will try to scan them in tomorrow.

[RyanPartridge]

I love those purple Dirtbikes!

[gossa]

Alex, word is that Carl 'sex on wheels' Alford gave Chris the idea for frames in 'british racing green' when was living in HB early nineties....