Gloucester bikes reach auction

Those of you who follow classic motorcycle auctions will know that, of late, many of the high-profile auctions have involved motorcycle collections incorporating many machines that are being split into sales of single vehicles.

Of course, this isn’t the case with each and every auction, as most still revolve around sale of single bikes owned by private individuals, and there are still bikes that are turning up as ‘barn finds’ – motorcycles that have been locked away behind closed doors for some years – and the next Stroud Auctions sale proves that.

Coming from a local house clearance are two pre-war motorcycles – one a Cotton and the other an Excelsior – that may have some interesting history.

Once the auction house had laid all the parts out it became apparent that there was a set of forks missing, but there are frame and engine numbers visible on the Excelsior and an engine number on the Cotton, although not an immediately obvious frame number.

Read more and view more images in the April 2019 issue of OBM – on sale now!