In a message dated 8/15/01 4:37:50 AM Eastern Daylight Time, garrison@efn.org writes:
<< And I'm wondering when "American Eagle" became "Nishiki", and when "C. Itoh" became "Bridgestone". >>
Those brands co-existed rather than changed from one to another. Am. Eagle was an attempt to sell bikes in the same market to different dealers. Like Trek & Gary Fisher.
C.Itoh vs Kabuki vs Bridgestone represented their attempt to address different markets. C.Itoh showed up in various non-bike shop outlets (catalog stores for instance) Kabuki was everywhere and Bridgestone, for the most part, bike shop only. All three brands didn't last the same length of time in the market place, but overlapped.
Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina