Hi Deejay and ODK members,
I am glad to be able to share these machines with you all. From all of the sources that I have been able to find so far it looks like these two are probably from about 1949.
There are several key differences between the early and late Centenary mowers. In particular the engine is oriented in the opposite direction (i.e. the magneto is on the inbound side on the early machines and on the outboard side on later machines - consequently the cooling fans are on opposite sides), the clutch is different (lever operation versus rod and linkage), the fuel tank is located on the cross bar of the handle bars on the early machines and on the engine cowl on late machines, the drive cover is tin on the early machines and cast aluminium on later mowers. The last detail whilst not a major change to the mower it (and the aluminium cooling fan cowl) does give a bit of a clue to the date of manufacture. The use of aluminium in manufacturing became quite prevalent in the late 1940's. With the end of World War 2 the need for vast amounts of aluminium for aircraft and other military uses also came to an end, thus resulting in a large amount of aluminium being available for other uses.
With respect to the lineage of successor models, the Supercut shared some key design elements such as the handlebar design, clutch design and operation, crank start and other minor details. In some respects the Supercut could be considered the refined version of the Centenary.
Cheers,
Sir Chook
