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Heavy mystery carburettor

Velocette enthusiast and accomplished autojumble hunter Phil Wickenden popped over to my son Peter’s stand at the VMCC Somerset Section’s Shepton Mallett autojumble, clutching a heavy, early brass carburettor, with the comment: ‘Here’s one for you to identify.’ The simple, unhelpful answer is ‘I haven’t a clue!’ Hopefully a reader or two will do better than me.

Of sturdy manufacture, its mixing chamber is cast in brass with a butterfly for air and lever operation for fuel mixture. The choke is mounted in a casting too, on the side of the mixing chamber, as per some sporting AMAC and Amal carburettors, and is cable controlled and similar in operation to the choke of an Amal GP, for example. Although missing, its float bowl mounts as per many later veteran and vintage Brown & Barlow, AMAC and other carburettors, as well as many pre Mononbloc Amals.

First thoughts are this flange mounting instrument was intended for stationary engine applications, but is more complex than most such carburettors. And the lever operation for air and fuel mix control is similar, but not identical, to the operation of the Brown and Barlow instrument fitted to son Peter’s 1907 454cc LMC.

The identification code stamped to the side of the mounting flange appears to read ‘15TT30(?39)LS. Likely as not, this code has nothing to do with sporting applications and it doesn’t match any carburettor codings I have dating from 1903 onwards. Any ideas?

What is it?

I’ve found some poor-quality family photographs dating from the 1930s,

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