The bicycle industry of the 1890's was akin to the automotive industry today. The Pope Manufacturing Company, manufacturer of Columbia bicycles, was also the largest manufacturer of automobiles in 1900 and 1902, but they bet on electric cars, which turned out to be about as successful back then as they are today. They also developed ball bearings and interchangeable parts for their bikes.
Not much has been done today that hadn't been tried back then. Bikes vere very high quality, and very well made. There were about 2000 manufacturers by the turn of the century, not all had the high standard of Columbia, Gormully, Victor and the larger manufacturers, but most were very high quality.
There were plenty of tandems available in that era, but the most common ones are the front to back like you'd see today. The sociables, like the Punnett Companion and the Wolf apparently didn't sell that well, so they were probably a commercial flop. Bicycles of that era were very expensive, keep in mind they were not for kids, they were for well to do people costing about $100 each, the socialbles were probably 200 or more, when people were making maybe 3 to 5 dollars a week. It was a significant investment. Maybe the people that could afford them, established married men, didn't want their wives next to them where the wives could talk to them! They preferred to keep them in the front so they were harder to hear!
David Toppin dave@pelletizer.com http://www.pelletizer.com <see our complete, searchable inventory
The Pelletizer Group, Inc. 4 LaChance Street Gardner, MA 01440-2476
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-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Philcycles@aol.com Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 2:17 PM To: theonetrueBob@webtv.net; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]No KOF "Sociables"?
In a message dated 9/14/06 10:58:40 AM, theonetrueBob@webtv.net writes:
>I suspect their
>production may have also been hampered due to the complexity of the
>steering and drive mechanisms and of course the increased weight
>required - especially considering the very early components, tubing,
>etc., available in the late 1800s.
>
I think that you would be shocked if you ever inspected bikes and components
from a century ago. Some were very high quality indeed, a lot of them. Maybe
a higher percentage than today.
Phil Brown
San Rafael, Calif.