An Unexpected Extension of the Riding Season

 This week's pleasant surprise has been the weather: unseasonably warm and dry. Normally my ride season basically ends when the clocks change. Well, the clocks changed last Saturday, and I'm still riding. I have to go a little earlier in the evening because it gets dark sooner, but the weather has been cooperative. This week I have out the 1970 Raleigh DL-1 rod brake roadster and the 1964 Schwinn Traveler. Both have retro lights with LED bulbs, which are very helpful this time of year.

 

Sturmey Archer Three Speed Shifters - Another Variation of the "Upside Down" Shifter

The evolution of Sturmey Archer post-war shifters is well-documented. If you have not already, take a look at Martin Hanczyc's well-written summary on post-war shifters. Available HERE.

Mr. Hancyzc calls the non-window, "upside down" style shifter the "GC3B". The above shifters are examples.

But you may have noticed something - those shifters are not exactly the same. One has brown accents on it, with a slightly different font. Let's take a closer look and see that there are, in fact, several variations of GC3B.

The typical GC3B is shown below - black and red accents, and a fairly fine font for the lettering.

 

Now, let's take a look at the "variant" - a shifter with brown accents and a slightly bolder font.

 Notice on this brown variant how the patent lettering is bolder at the top, and how the "England" is also bolder at the bottom. The numbers are also a little bolder along the side. The "3 Speed" to the right also is larger than on the multi-color version. The contours on the shifter lever are also a little different - the lever is slightly larger and flatter than on the multi-color version.

One thing you cannot see, is that the brown shifter takes the screw-in cable end, while the multi-color  shifter above takes the later, slip-in type cable end. The brown shifter is a slightly earlier shifter than the multi-color.

What to make of this? It turns out that there are several versions of the GC3B "upside down" shifter of the late 1950s. There is the common, multi-color version with thinner writing and a shorter lever, but there is also the "brown" version with the longer lever and bolder writing on the face. Functionally, these shifters are similar, though the brown version has the screw-in type cable end and the multi-color uses the slip-in cable end. 

We have seen yet another variation of Sturmey Archer shifters from after WWII, during the 1950s. An additional thank you to Mr. Hanczyc for taking the time to put together his excellent summary on the shifters. Check out the link at the start of this article for more information on these wonderful bike parts.