Shelby Cycle Company started making bicycles sometime in 1925. Before this the Shelby Cycle Frame Builders Co. made frames for Mead and other jobbers. The serial numbers from 1925 to 1930 are not well understood. The few frames I’ve seen just have numbers and no letters so the list I present here starts with 1931. From 1931 to 1941 the serial list appears to be fairly accurate. Anomalies do exist however and to best date the bike you need to consider the frame and fork style. Shelby produced a variety of models and some can be hard to identify. The serial numbers themselves exhibit a lot of variance in how they were stamped and sideways letters are not uncommon. Also, it appears in at least some cases where these serial numbers will cross over into the following year e.g. a very late “R” may be a ’39 bike.

1931     F

1932     G

1933     H

1934     K

1935     M

1936     N

1937     P

1938     R

1939     T

1940     V

1941      B or C. I believe the “C” serial was for 1942

Pre war serial number examples

Post War

More study is needed to decipher these numbers but starting in either late 1945 or early 1946 the letters G, H, J, K, & P were used through 1948/9? The difference between the prewar bikes that used these letters and the post war bikes that re-used these letters is not hard to distinguish. Sometime in 1949 Shelby started using a serial number tag on their bikes much like the post war Monark tags. The tags start off with “NO.” followed by two numbers which is the year. In 1953 Gambles bought Shelby and a few months later sold the name to AMF who had also bought Cleveland Welding Co. Shelby bikes from the AMF period 1953/4-1956 will have a CWC serial number. After 1956 it depends on who made the bike as there were several manufacturers.

Example of post war serial number and plate