1953 wishbone frame without flattened front tubes

[panster]

Hi all,
I've got a stone stock bowleg frame,
the year i.d. on the top motor mount says 3 I, which I read as September '53, the previous owner has always said it was from a '54 bike, it has round front tubes with no horn blocks,which Palmer says is mid '54.
As far as I can tell (and I've seen a few) the frame has never seen a torch or saw,so if it's '53 why aren't the front tubes flattened ?

[Cotten]

So, it was made in late '53,.. and issued in '54. Perhaps the return to round tubes had started before their introduction on production machines. For example, I've seen shovelhead castings with '65 tags, etc.

When dealing with history, there is an important term known as "revisionism". That's when historians look back and dictate what they thought was reality. The truth is: the Factory didn't worry about having every part "correct' for posterity to scrutinize.

It sounds like you have a very nice frame!

[panster]

Thanks for your reply Cotten,
I suppose it's easy to take an historians word as gospel, and much as I trust "the book" lines must inevitably get blurred with time.
Yeah, it's a really nice frame, I bought a whole project shovel just to get hold of it, I'm going to build my bike onto it and then cobble together a little bobber out of the remains.
Again thanks for your much valued opinion. Now where is that copy of Martin jack Rosenbluems'
definitive history of H-D