Description
National Motorcycle Museum | Solihull, West Midlands
Viewing: Tues 24th March from 1pm
Auction: Wed 25th March from 9am
Location: National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry Road, Bickenhill, Solihull B92 0EJ
1938 BSA M24 Gold Star
No Reserve - Older concours-standard restoration
Registration No: DVO 703
Frame No: JM24-209
MOT: Exempt
Original frame and engine, as authenticated by the Gold Star Owners' Club
Recipient of a 1980s concours restoration, which was refreshed in 2004
Interesting history involving trials rider Jim Wayte and an Australian sugar cane millionaire
The Road and Race Collection
Birmingham Small Arms was established in Small Heath, Birmingham, in 1861 to manufacture weapons. Around the turn of the century, they started making bicycles and progressed onto motorcycles a few years later. By the 1920s, BSAs were often at the front ranks of competition, and when Wal Handley received a Gold Star award for lapping Brooklands at 100mph on his Empire Star model in 1937, BSA was justifiably proud; Gold Star duly became the designation for BSA’s top performance models from 1938. The first iteration was the M24, a 496cc single with an aluminium head and, for 1939, close-ratio gears.
This superb first-year Goldie has some intriguing early history, as engine test records show that JM24-209 with engine 204 underwent testing at Russells Garage in Chatham, Kent, before receiving its ‘DVO’ registration in Nottinghamshire. By 1978, it was owned by Geoffrey Brandon of Hersham, Surrey, who stripped it and half restored it, intending to race it. Before he finished, it was bought by Jim Wayte of Woking, who had trialled a ’55 Gold Star in the ’50s and ’60s and thereafter become a serial Goldie restorer. He restored ‘DVO’ and showed it widely with the Gold Star Owners’ Club in the 1980s, when it won numerous concours prizes and appeared in John Gardner’s BSA Gold Star Super Profile (1985). At one Stafford Show, it was spotted by a Halifax, Queensland, sugar cane millionaire who claimed to have every BSA model except a ’38 Goldie, and pestered to buy it, money no object. It duly departed for Australia but was reimported in 2004 by our vendor, an enthusiastic motorcycle collector, following light refurbishment and detailing by Mitchell Barnes. After years on static display, it will now require recommissioning. It is sold with its 1978 logbook, much correspondence with Wayte and Gardner, photographs from Wayte’s ownership, a Gold Star Owners’ Club certificate of authenticity, and a 1938 BSA sales brochure.
** Bidding will take place live at the venue, online via our H&H website, by telephone and commission - T&Cs apply**
Parking and entry into the auction is free for auction attendees with a catalogue, available at the door.
Catalogues can be purchased for £20 (admits 2 people).
