[rewdco]

Darren,

This is the so called “contract plate”, fitted to all (?) the vehicles during the early years of the war. Later contract plates were made in pressed steel, but I don’t know if the system was still in use towards the end of the war. The purpose of this plate was to find out quickly which parts that had to be ordered when the vehicle came in for a repair. The same contract number (in the case of your BSA M20: C/9310) and catalogue reference number (in your case Catalogue Reference Nr 30) were stamped in blue ink on the maker’s documents. So it was easy to find the right book for the right vehicle with this code: “Contract number” / “Catalogue number” / “ * “ , with “ * “ being either 1, 2 or 4:
1: this is always “A list of spare & replacement parts”
2: this is either the “Instruction Book”, or the “Hints and Tips” book, which is in fact also an instruction book…
3: ???
4: this is the “Driver’s Handbook”, which is also a kind of an “Instruction Book”…

This “easy recognition system” became a bit unreliable when lots of vehicles had gone through a complete rebuild. During these rebuilds, parts from different contracts got mixed up…

Can this plate help you to date your motorcycle? Well, BSA contract C/9310 was ordered (“demand date”) on 3rd December 1940, and the contract date was 30th December 1940. From the military receive cards (in the VMCC library), I know that the deliveries started in August 1941, and according to Orchard and Madden’s “British Forces Motorcycles”, the deliveries ended in January 1942. Frame numbers ran from WM20-44213 until WM20-53212, and the allotted census numbers were C4553722 until C4562721. With this information, you should be able to interpolate the approximate build date and census number of your motorcycle.

Regards,
Jan