The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 24, No 115
Articles in this issue
- After the Diamond Rubber Co. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. took out Tillinghast licenses, all single tube tire prices were set to rise by nearly 50 percent, with minimum licensed prices fixed at $4.25 per pair for guaranteed tires and $2.75 for unguaranteed tires, effectively limiting retail price cutting.
- Some Elmira bicycle dealers announced they would switch to cash-only sales in 1900 to avoid the uncertainty of installment transactions, though installment buying was acknowledged to be beneficial to working-class customers who used bicycles to ride home for lunch.
- The Springfield, Massachusetts bicycle repairers' union, with twenty-six of thirty-one local repairmen as members, adopted a standard price schedule charging catalogue prices for parts and fifty cents per hour for labor to end the price-cutting that had previously demoralized the local trade.
- After collecting $1,270 in license fees from Buffalo bicycle rack owners and manufacturers for infringement of the Calkins cycle-stand patent, the patent agent announced he would move on to Detroit or Cincinnati to collect similar royalties from infringers in those cities.
- The Newcastle-on-Tyne firm of George & Jobling was reported to be energetically selling American bicycles in England, taking the unusual step of countering domestic prejudice by openly disputing the claim that American machines were inferior, noting the criticism dated from a flood of low-quality exports in 1896.
- The Canadian branch of the Miami Cycle & Mfg. Co. of Middletown, Ohio, was taken over by the newly formed Berlin & Racycle Mfg. Co., Ltd., which also secured control of Arthur Pequegnat's Berlin bicycle plant; both the Racycle and Berlin lines will now be built in Berlin, Ontario, under W. E. Houghton, formerly the Miami company's Toronto branch manager.
- The Minneapolis Cycle Trade Association adopted a revised 1900 repair price list offering reductions on combination jobs such as frame, fork, and wheel work, a schedule expected to be followed by the new St. Paul association as well.
- A report on Bangkok notes the city has grown from nine miles of paved streets a decade ago to more than forty-seven miles today, with the king personally funding a new steel bridge each year, as the seventy-five miles of canals that once served as the only means of travel are gradually replaced by roads suited to wheeling.
- An editorial argues that improved industrial conditions are letting bicycle dealers stiffen credit terms, recommending co-operative local agreements -- such as a $1-a-week passbook plan requiring $10 to $15 down -- to curb the ruinously small installment payments that have caused losses in the trade.
- An editorial warns dealers against verbally over-promising service life on bicycles and tires beyond what manufacturers themselves guarantee, suggesting a printed sign and advertisement disclaiming guarantees beyond the dealer's own honest judgment of a product's worth.
- A trade feature reports that dealers from Bridgeport, Connecticut to Cawker City, Kansas find roughly 37.5 percent of rural customers demand highly decorated frames, that about half of farm buyers pay cash, and that a third of agents hear complaints about excessively dropped crank hangers striking narrow country foot-paths.
- A short piece observes that pictures in a shop window reliably draw passersby to stop and look, arguing dealers should use illustrated displays to attract curious foot traffic.
- The Rochester Ball Bearing Co. filed articles of incorporation in Rochester with $100,000 capital stock, beginning business with $5,000, naming directors Mark D. Knowlton, Fred H. Beach, Harry LaCasse, Harry C. Engfer, and William H. Driscoll.
- Minneapolis's police bicycle inspector reports 517 bicycles lost or stolen in the past year, 322 recovered and fifteen thieves convicted, and recommends requiring second-hand dealers to file daily reports of wheels taken in trade, the same as pawnbrokers must do.
- Veteran Chicago bicycle man A. J. Gould claims he can produce English-made bicycles predating the Smith bottom-bracket patent now owned by the American Bicycle Co., arguing English designers anticipated the patented hanger construction years earlier.
- Cycle Age corrects last week's cycle-show report, which mistakenly described the Standard Welding Co. of Cleveland's forksides and seat posts as brazed when they are in fact electrically welded, a process the magazine calls superior.
- Alvin Peter sold his interest in the Toledo bicycle store at 334 Superior Street to N. W. Church of the Snell Cycle Fittings Co.; the renamed Eager & Church will sell Snell bicycles on the passbook installment plan, with sub-agencies placed with J. H. Saelzer and Roy T. Samberg.
- The Buescher Mfg. Co. of Elkhart, Indiana explains it skipped the New York cycle show because its toe clips and pumps are already so thoroughly placed with jobbers that exhibiting would undercut them, though it still booked a $6,000 sundries order direct from the show.
- C. A. Persons of the Persons Mfg. Co. arranged for the Bunker Saddle Co. of Chicago to distribute the Persons suspension saddle to manufacturers, jobbers, and dealers as a supplementary line alongside the Bunker and Rubber Neck form saddles.
- Charles Root of Plainville, Connecticut is suing A. H. Warner & Co., also of Plainville, for royalties on a cork-composition bicycle grip process he claims to have invented and disclosed to the firm; the defendants' demurrer was denied in common pleas court.
- Sydney customs figures show bicycle imports collapsing from $1,865,965 in 1898 to $409,505 in 1899, even as the Austral Cycle Agency introduces a $75 English-built Austral roadster and the Dunlop Pneumatic Tire Co. of Australasia withdraws its guarantee on tires imported from outside Australasia.
- Reprinted from Hardware Dealers' Magazine, the item explains that keeping display windows free of frost in cold weather requires ventilation -- bored holes, floor gratings, or a running electric fan -- so the glass stays at the same temperature inside and out.
- This trade-notes column reports the Elmore Bicycle Co. of Clyde, Ohio preparing its first motor vehicle, a $30,000 incorporation of the Colorado Automatic Cycle Pump Co. of Denver, a $27,000 sale of the American Machine Co.'s Flint, Michigan bicycle business to Tierney Bros., and dozens of smaller factory and dealer notes.
- This patents column covers A. P. Morrow's coaster brake, Herbert Beeston's sliding chain-adjusting hanger, E. Y. White's cushioned crank hanger and seat support, and Geo. L. Thompson's trough-shaped crank bracket and rubber-plug seat post binder.
- This motor-vehicle supplement covers the automobile exhibits' outsized crowds at the New York cycle and auto show, the Automobile Club of America's fifty-six-mile Tarrytown club run led by A. C. Bostwick, and the Illinois Electric Vehicle Transportation Co.'s move to cut its authorized capital from $25,000,000 to $2,500,000.
- This buyers' column describes the Cycle Whistle Co.'s double-acting alarm, Iver Johnson's 1900 catalogue and two-piece crank hanger, the Star Ball Retainer Co.'s claim of orders for more than 4,000,000 retainers, and the Aurora Automatic Machinery Co.'s new Thor roller-bearing hubs and hangers.
- This sport and club column covers the racing crowd gathered at the New York cycle show including Zimmerman, Bald, and Major Taylor, persistent rumors that the American Bicycle Co. will spend $100,000 backing racing teams, and George R. Bidwell's quiet campaign for the L.A.W. presidency.
- The League of New South Wales Wheelmen ran a three-night meet on the Sydney cricket grounds lit by 2,000 acetylene burners, where F. Hunt won the Christmas wheel race for $375 and Gordon set an Australian competition record of :58 in the half-mile.
- English motor-cycle racers Wridgway and Jarrott arrived in New York with a fleet of racing singles, tandems, and larger machines to challenge American riders, as the National Cycling Association prepares to adopt motor racing rules at its February 5 meeting.
- With the L.A.W. national assembly two weeks off, opponents of President Keenan are reportedly unable to unite behind a challenger despite New York's push to draft George R. Bidwell, while delegates weigh three competing proposals to replace Sterling Elliott's official-organ contract.
- A touring feature describes cycling on Miami's smooth coralline-rock roads and a visit to L.A.W. founder Kirk Munroe's Cocoanut Grove home, while noting sandy trails toward Cutler demand wide, tough-rubber tires and low-drop frames.
- This news column reports Otis Pierce's come-from-behind win of a six-day amateur race in New Bedford, Massachusetts covering 387 miles 9 laps, Eddie Bald's plan to race only in Paris matches (perhaps against Zimmerman), and a proposed Fresno-to-Sanger, California bicycle path survey.