Hi Thomas,
I'm not sure how much help this will be, but I have three Styria hubs from
the 1950's. All of them have three smooth ridges around the middle of the
hub shell. One is branded Styria, one is branded Sears and the third is
branded J. C. Higgins - iirc, they all are stamped with the same model
number (I'll check tonight). I was under the impression that these hubs were
simply rebadged (re-shelled) Sturmey Archer hubs, but I haven't taken one
apart yet to compare the insides. The Styria hubs I have certainly have a
different sounding click to the pawls than a Sturmey. For what it's worth, I
also had a SunTour 3-speed hub that was identical to a S-A, except there
were twice as many ratchet detents in the ring-gear and left hand ball cup -
it definitely sounded different than a S-A.
I believe Tony Hadland makes some reference to Styria, SunTour and possibly
some others as being licensed from S-A. If you haven't already, you might
want to check out his book (and website):
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/
Happy cycling,
Byron Morton
Nashville, TN
>From: "Thomas Benson" <encouragetom@hotmail.com>
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: [CR]Styria hub gears
>Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 16:51:27 +0000
>
>
>I have a 1954 Holdsworth Monsoon with 3-speed Styria hub gears. Anyone know
>anything about Styria? Reckoned to be superior to S-A or not?
>
>Thanks for all replies