According to the best bike historian we have in Sweden - Gert Ekström - the story is as follows:
In 1897 a well-known iron monger in Stockholm August Lindblad and a likewise well-known racer Eli Pettersson started a joint company "Amerikansk Cycle Import" and imported 6 000 american Crescents from the Pope company. The bikes were quite expensive, but earned a good reputation. So good in fact that Lindblad in 1908 started his own manufacturing in Stockholm. In 1912 Henrik Morén cycled 790 kms in 24 hours on one of these, a new world record. Lindblad also imported Harley- Davidson motorbikes and Torpedo hubs.
In 1931 Crescent was bought by Nymans Verkstäder in Uppsala and became one brand of a number. I have been walking by this factory on my way to work every day from 1989 to 1999. It´s now part of town administration offices. In 1948 Harry Snell won the amateur road race in Valkenburg on a swedish Crescent.
This merge was the start of several leading to the present megacompany owned by Salvatore Grimaldi (who immigrated to Sweden from Italy as a young man and built up his position here) including not only Monark but Bianchi and Peugeout.
Monark was a different company altogether (such names were common in the early days of swedish bike manufature, Rex and King were two other well-known brands) and the merge with Crescent didn´t take place until 1960. Until then they were sharp rivals, Crescent being the orange team and Monark the blue.
(I - born 1943 - was blue, but when my father tried to give my two year younger brother a Monark in 1957 he cried of shame until he got a Crescent.)
Olof Stroh
Uppsala Sweden
> The Crescent brand was sold along with Monarch to a Swedish company by the
> Pope dominated manufacturing consortium after the bike market colapse at the
> turn of the century. I can't give you the exact year off hand, but I think it
> was roughly 1907.
> ----
> Calvert Guthrie
> Kansas City