ALLIN HISTORY
"Well as far as I am aware the Allin was founded in Croydon
just after the second War c 1945. The business was founded by a chinese gentleman by the
name of Chang Allin. One of the famous models is the Stan Butler model who was the builder
of the 1948 Olympic team cycles, supposedly other builders such as Bill Gray and Ron
Cooper also built Allins as were also some of the the Holdsworth builders. A rare make
usually seen with nervex pro lugwork and Stallard dropouts in the early days - built with
Reynolds 531 tubing
I have seen 4 or 5 examples, mostly Stan Butler models all
seem to be well built and all examples notably have a curved rear brake bridge.
Two sets of down tube logo have been seen either a serif
block ALLIN on the later 1960-80 bikes about 30mm in height, and the earler ones have
copperplate script 'The Allin'. Most examples seem to be panelled on seat tube and head
tube with a contrasting colour, and round to round fork blade forks seemed to have been
the preferred profile. The shop closed down last year and it is unknown whether any
original transfers exist, when I had my example restoved the original Allin script on the
fork crown in red was unavailable.
What throws me is that there is an example of a 1921 Allin that has
recently been offered for sale - if this is the same marque then the post war history
could well be wrong."
Mike Dearing in Old Bikes web site
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