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Ransomes Marquis Mk4

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stevecross Mon, 30/05/2016

Can anyone help with dating a Ransomes mower I've recently bought?

It's a Ransomes Marquis 18inch Mk4 with a BSA sloper engine.

The Regd. No. is DE 2972.

For interest the supplier stickers although badly scratched are still readable:

Supplied by H.N. RUMSBY & SON, ENGINEERS, Phone Bungay 54

Do they still exist I wonder?

Any help would be appreciated.

p.s. it starts first pull and runs beautifully!

 

Forums

stevecross Wed, 01/06/2016

Thanks - I'll follow up both your suggestions and if I make any progress I'll post the results on the Forum. I can see there's a series of numbers stamped on the Sloper exactly where you described. I just need to clean the area up a bit so I can read them properly.

Regards

Steve

 

stevecross Wed, 29/06/2016

I've managed to get an approximate production date for the Marquis by contacting Meetens and Ransomes - so for anyone else with a similar mower the following may be of interest.

BSA Sloper engine: stamped 12C/BZZ/02/17388

Paul Child at Meetens told me that this was "one of the early BSA engines, early 1960s" and that I would "not harm it by using unleaded petrol"

Marquis chassis plate: Ransomes 18" Marquis Mk4  Regd No. DE2972

Ransomes advised that Marquis mowers with the DE suffix were manufactured between September 1963 (starting with DE301) and September 1967 (ending with DE5056).

Confusingly they told me that the suffix DE was used for the 20" Marquis and not the 18". Mine is definitely an 18" - the chassis plate says so and so does my ruler - so a bit of a mystery there! 

So my best estimate is that my Marquis dates from around 1965.

Hope the above is of help.