Bicycle serial number

[MrFryMoto]

anybody know of a way to determine the manufacturer/model/year of a bicycle via the Serial Number?

i found this stamped into the left side of the headtube: MOP1139643

it's an old bike that i plan on fixing up for the girl, but i am curious as to what it is.

[NAKID]

It was made from a MOP hence the vin....

[triangleforge]

There pro'ly is, but you'd have to ask a real vintage bike geek to get the answer; now that Sheldon Brown has passed on, I don't know of anyone else online who'd know that kind of thing off the top of his/her head.

Since i've never noticed a bike serial number with a letter prefix (not that I've looked all that hard), I'd not be surprised if it's an acronym in the mfr's native language. Possibly even more helpful is the location of the number -- never seen one on the side of the headtube; usually they seem to appear on the bottom of the bottom bracket shell. Though if it looks a bit crudely done with individual hand stamps, the "P" could well be for Police -- lots of police departments will register bikes and stamp a unique number on them.

Any more identifying info on the frame (is it road, mountain or indeterminate?) -- things like odd lugs or weird seat stays? Would be mighty cool if you'd scored a curly-stay Hetchins...

[stateprez]

This may be way off base, but the only bicycle that comes to mind is my Monty mod trials bike- It has the serial stamped into the head tube.  Monty being Spanish, it could be a European thing.  I know higher end euro bikes ie Pinarello, Colnago, etc don't do this- I'm sure for aesthetic purposes.

Just my $.02.

[mitt]

schwin has a database you can look up.

[erik822]

Couple places to look (if you haven't already):

Site tells you where the serial numbers are located.
http://www.iape.org/TipsAndTricks/BicycleSerialNumbers/index.html

And a vintage bicycle site:
oldroads.com