The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 24, No 106
Articles in this issue
- The American Bicycle Company formally acquired the Chas. H. Sieg Manufacturing Co. plant in Kenosha for $246,000 while its agent Harry Cassidy was reportedly trying to recruit additional independent makers, meeting considerable resistance from manufacturers unwilling to sell except for cash at a profit.
- An Atlanta court ruled that a bicycle dealer must pay the state's $100 tax separately for every make of bicycle he sells, not just a single blanket payment, with the dealer immediately announcing he would appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.
- The trustee controlling the Sidwell pedal patents notified nearly all American pedal manufacturers that their standard-design pedals infringed his patents, demanding royalty settlements from makers who had been operating without licenses.
- A special meeting of the Rubber Tire Association attended by both licensed and unlicensed tire manufacturers concluded that $4 per pair was the minimum price at which cheap tires could be sold for the good of the trade, following the Tillinghast patent decision.
- Despite news that the United States Rubber Company might not appeal the Tillinghast patent decision, Colonel Dodge said he wanted an appeal to proceed, confident it would further strengthen his position for suits in other states.
- A prominent eastern bicycle manufacturer argued that dealers spend at least $7 per bicycle in overhead costs and cautioned that manufacturers who grew their business by squeezing dealer margins were undermining the long-term health of the trade.
- An A.B.C. dealer who inquired about renewing his exclusive agency for 1901 could get no assurance that the line would not later be consolidated under a single agency, so he refused to continue and signed instead with an independent maker.
- Buffalo dateline: Edwin S. Calkins' agent Mr. Youlan has served notices on 2,600 of an estimated 3,000 local users of T-supported bicycle racks demanding $5 licenses or a lawsuit, citing a favorable ruling from Judge Coxe, but most Buffalo merchants are ignoring the notices as the rack design predates Calkins' patent; only the Wm. Hengerer Co. and one other firm have paid.
- Survey of forty-seven dealers across nine states found that thirty-six reported no demand from country and rural customers for lighter bicycles, who prioritised strength and low price over weight savings. The fashion for lighter roadsters was seen as an urban phenomenon that had not yet reached smaller towns and farming communities.
- Minneapolis dateline: despite the close of the retail season, riders still use the cycle paths for business travel and dealers report strong prospects for next year, while some makers under the American Bicycle Co. complain about losing control of their selling departments to New York management.
- Roundup of small independent builders: V. & H. Schmitt of Celina, Ohio launch $25 and $35 Celina models; Bert Pease's Nioga Cycle Works builds a new chainless with coaster brake; the Du Quoin Gun & Cycle Co. sold sixty-eight machines; and Minneapolis repairman Frederick Roach says repair work outearns building bicycles.
- Editorial on the American Bicycle Company observing that its factories were showing little activity, prompting trade anxiety about potential spring shortages. The article argued that the combine's directors presumably understood their production plans and contended that whatever criticisms could be levelled at the combination, its work in certain directions had produced worthwhile benefits.
- Editorial on the Tillinghast patent's affirmation by Judge Colt and the incorporation of the million-dollar Single Tube Automobile & Bicycle Tire Co. to acquire the patents; Colonel Dodge says he seeks only fair reimbursement, the bicycle-tire royalty will remain twenty-five cents a pair, and the Diamond Rubber Co. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plan to fight the patent in court.
- Roundup of Indiana makers: B.D. Emanuel's Huntington Mfg. Co. turned an idle factory into a business that built 8,000 machines last season with backing from lumberman Van B. Perrine; the Acme Cycle Co. of Elkhart and the Ariel Cycle Co. of Goshen report brisk agency renewals; and William Rooke, new general manager of the Butler Co., has already arranged foreign sales through Liverpool's J.C. Plimpton & Co.
- Julius and Will Lonn are still untangling the three-factory merger that formed the Great Western Mfg. Co., whose Marion, Ind. plant under Lew Halladay -- eight buildings on two blocks, partly run on natural gas costing only about $300 a year -- is expected to turn out 50,000 bicycles for the coming season under president Phillip Matter.
- The Soudan Mfg. Co.'s new 300x60-foot brick factory in Elkhart, Ind. will open within two weeks under George and John Mason; in Washington, D.C. the Carpenter Cycle Co. becomes the city's first bicycle house to add automobiles, taking the Stanley Locomobile agency, while the Orient Cycle Co. adds athletic goods and phonographs.
- American Bicycle Co. concerns have taken 105 of the 243 available spaces for the cycle and automobile show at Madison Square Garden the week following January 20, correcting an earlier telegram error, with less than 150 booths now left among exhibitors including the U.S. Motor Vehicle Co. and Pope Mfg. Co.
- Rochester dateline: inventor Franklin B. Pease has gone to Washington to patent his own cycle rack while Edwin S. Calkins' attorneys press $5 collections from Pease-rack users claiming infringement; separately the Meteor Cycle Co. has opened a mail-order factory selling Thor-fitted $50 and Cline-fitted $30 machines.
- Weekly listing of dealer openings, closures, fires and ownership changes, including Parsons Bros. of Coudersport, Pa. retiring, fire damage at E.S. Pillard's New Britain, Conn. shop and at Frank Russell's Janesville, Wis. store ($100 loss), and Castree & Shaw Co. selling to the Vincent Valve Co. of Owosso, Mich.
- Brevities including the new Simmons Saddle Co. of Camden, N.Y. producing a hundred rawhide saddles every ten hours; a St. Paul hardware firm's $100,000, 4,728-bicycle order for the Great Western Mfg. Co.; Rollins Mfg. Co. shipments to Shanghai and Bartenstein, Prussia; and the Cole Co.'s denial that any suit was filed over its "Stop Leak" tire-fluid patent.
- A moralizing piece on bicycles enabling crime: at Toronto Junction a repairman found about $20 of jewelry a thief had hidden in deflated tires, and Providence, R.I. jeweler Francis Bock was arrested for smuggling imitation pearls, worth $4 per 1,000 wholesale, into the country inside bicycle tires.
- Includes "Oscar -- A Tale of Repair Shop Woe," a comic profile of a small-town repairman who home-brews rim cement from melted solid tires and resin and trues wheels by jumping on them, plus notes on William Hillman's new brazeless "scroll" tubing frame joint and C.W. Gabe's patented puncture-sealing tire compound made from plumbago, glycerin and egg albumen.
- Shop tips including H.L. Arnold's patented ridged milling-cutter tooth that resists enlarging its seat hole, E.S. Newton's rule-of-thumb for finding lathe change gears to cut unusual threads, and a cost comparison showing drill-press broaching is far cheaper than lathe boring for rough gear and pulley holes.
- New patents including Mikael Pederson's double-ball-row pedal, J.M. Marty's dual-adjustment handlebar with bevel-gear synchronization, Robert Johnston's inflatable tire patch and repair tool, and F.H. Heath's self-truing double-cone bearing.
- Technical description of a self-starting gasoline motor invented by the Messrs. Dawson of Canterbury, capable of storing compressed air for starting and providing fifty percent extra power for emergencies by scavenging the explosion chamber and admitting additional fuel, as reported in The Autocar of London.
- Trade notes including the Wilmot & Hobbs Mfg. Co.'s Clincher brass-lined tubing being adopted by the Waltham Mfg. Co. for Orient bicycles and by Julius Andrae & Sons; the Miami Cycle & Mfg. Co.'s new chainless Racycle fitted with the Bullis Ball gear; and the Badger Brass Co.'s Solar acetylene lamp sales climbing from 20,000 in 1897 to 150,000 this past season.
- Coverage of the New York six-day race's new team-relay format that ends the old round-the-clock grind; Bert Repine's win of the Kansas City forty-eight-hour race (961 1/3 miles) over Charles W. Miller; Edouard Taylor's narrow win over Jacquelin in a Paris match race; and the arrival of Le Velo's Victor Breyer with a European racing contingent for the winter indoor season.
- Short items noting French champion Albert Champion reportedly fled to America to dodge conscription, the English government ordering cycle supplies for a South African cycle corps, a Maine L.A.W. fight to force towns to post road signs, and New York's side-path law having collected nearly $200,000 in rider fees since passage.