1903 Columbia Model 108 —
or 1902 Columbia Model 88 ?
I purchased this bike in March 2010. I'm not sure the guy who sold it to me knew what he had— or didn't have. Neither did I. On that day, the owner touted it as a reconstruction project he didn't have time to pursue anymore. At the time, the only thing I knew for certain was that the spring forks on this bike only showed up in one year— 1903. I was alert enough to know that something was funny.
You have to be careful at swap meets. You usually end up finding something you didn't expect to see, and now can't live without. When I saw this in pieces in a box, I knew without looking too deeply, it was something for which a couple of years ago I would have refused to leave without taking with me. The headbadge suprised me, but I was also thrilled enough otherwise not to notice I had reached the drooling point. That this bike showed up today, while I was showing-off The Hill-Climber, my prize project, was the payoff for 6+ years of dreaming. After an exhaustive search (and closure of a form through writing a book, Restoration, about it), this bike complemented my obsessive-compulsive journey across America because it had some of the right parts to complete the Hill-Climber. Along with my search, I picked up some arcane knowledge, and I guess I tipped my hand today when I told the owner I thought the headbadge was wrong. Surely I was someone who by virtue of raising the issue, knew enough about this bike to pass one of the tests necessary to become the next keeper.
Right bike; wrong headbadge.
The 1902 Catalog 25 from Columbia/Hartford. Only a brief afterthought to the Model 81 listing identified the existence of the Model 88 as an option with a cushion frame (see page cut above). Officially, 2-speed gearing and spring forks would have to wait.TO VIEW THE OFFICIAL SPECS FOR 1902, click HERE. TO DOWNLOAD A PDF FILE OF THIS CATALOG click HERE . It is about 5MB, so wait for it.
Above: The Model 88 barely got a byline in 1902—
an afterthought to a full line of bicycle models and options.
Above, a page from catalog 26 (1903) with the Model 108 features/options.
1903 was the only official known year the spring front fork was offered.
Above, the re-assembled beauty shot and the bicycle in the basement (rollover) with the bars it came with (not original). Note rims, not original, are metal clad wood. The tube tires were purchased from Harper Tire (W. Virginia).
Someday, someone is going to start making "white" tubes to improve the
show quality for these old bikes.
Frame unassembled (l) and seat post detail (rollover). The frame was powder coated by the previous owner before losing interest in restoration.
2-speed gears and coaster brake (r) assembled (rollover)
with outer hub and wheel. Note ball-end spokes (very original).
The 3-piece oil cover at right came with the purchase.
He made me an offer as the show wound down, telling me someone else was interested but wanted to "steal it from him" for far below maket value. He didn't like the guy's attitude, and "wouldn't I like to own it for a agreeably fair price?"I didn't buy it immediately (ignoring a cardinal rule of swap meet finds), but when I got home, it wasn't too much trouble to call me up and make me an offer I couldn't refuse (he had my card and a copy of my book). He made me an offer, and I didn't refuse. Before I took official posession, I started looking at the wrinkle surrounding the headbadge. What was revealed gave it enough mystery for me to investigate further. Was it a true 1902 Model 88 or a 1903 Model 108 with the wrong headbadge— or some hybrid bike shop mash-up from another era? I embarked on another search but never got the definitive answer I needed until a year and a half later when someone from The Wheelmen's Club who was researching Columbia chainless bicycles finally contacted me to confirm what I thought I had, and ask me how I knew. I told him that I surmised with some certainty that my copy might be a mid-year offering. I asked him to send me the interior of the 1902 catalog he possessed, afterwhich I promptly changed my story (though the possibility of a different mid-year catalog is still more interesting). What I already knew was that The REAL Model 88 was probably not in high demand in 1902. The REAL catalog I now view confirms this in a way: Columbia didn't even put a picture in this catalog, just inserted a line about an option for the Model 81 to be ordered with the "cushion frame" as the Model 88. When I saw the catalog cut, I could believe my bike had the wrong headbadge— that it was really a Model 108. While the possibility still exists that someone in 1902, or later, added the 2-speed gears and the spring forks to a Model 81, the REAL Model 88 should have had a cushion frame (I saw one of these on the CABE sight), proving as conclusively as necessary that this is the later edition Model 108. Even with Model 88 headbadge, it could only be described as a mash-up from another era— prodigal, undocumented and unloved by most outside the era, except myself. A lot of collectors are justifiably finecky about details and dollars, so will reject most things outside rigid perfection. I'm not that way.
Provenance isn't everything to me. I appreciate old things because of what they represent, not because of what they might be worth if I sell them to someone. I like history— and a good story. I know some of the history of bicyces in 1902. I know Albert Pope was in the process of collecting brands and reconfiguring his own Pope Manufacturing Co. "Columbia" brand in 1902 after the ABC consortium he headed initially collapsed (see american bicycle company history timeline). Though the experiment in market control from 1898-1902 was not officially over until 1903, Pope surely had to be re-considering previous years' product oversites for future brands.
The best read of this tumultuous time is in a book by David V. Herlihey, "Bicycle: The History", now out of print. In 1903, the Model 108 was more like the Model 81 (did not have a cushion frame as a standard feature), but carried the new "spring front forks," a short-lived innovation (see catalog cut at right). The only record I can find without further searching is not totally correct, and was first compiled in the early 1970s. (See First Flight identification chart.) That record may well be amended if my recent contact with The Wheelmen is successful in his quest. As with most antique bicycle restorations, retro-information is usually a work-in-progress. Without some serious need for fact-finding it may remain so for a while. In mid-year 1902, the Model 88 might have been a special order model for afficionados who just had to have the best available at any price at the time. If it was a market test for Pope, spring forks, and 2-speed gears would have been potential features to try out, unofficially. Like any bleeding 19th century industrialist groping for a way to rescue a moribund market, there were many things to try out before committing to fully. That bicycles were uncomfortable for women and children to ride was a known issue surrounding the failure to innovate (and add cost to a product) by Pope and others before 1900 (read: Herlihey). After 1900, it was a different world filling fast with personal transportation alternatives: automobiles and motorcycles. Here is another interesting link with Columbia ephemera and information 1898 pope mfg columbia chainless. Warning: This is internet-based history. What looks like a really good source can be riddled with innuendo and errors. Take anything on the internet with a grain of salt, (including this piece). The facts can be elusive in any era, but there's a lot more to conjecture about after 110 years.
In my search for elusive and arcane facts I'll never get to use outside a swap meet, I made contact with Ken Kowal, the son of Columbia Museum historian Jack Kowal, who could not unravel this mystery either. http://www.vintagecolumbiabikes.com/index.html His take:
"You are correct that this was a confusing time for the bicycle industry. From what I understand Pope ended up buying back not just his former factory but several others. I know he ended up owning dozens of different brands from ABC but I doubt most of those factories stayed open, he just transferred production to Hartford and the Westfield Losier plant. Eventually, just those two would remain, then just Westfield. I would love to get more info on which plants remained and for how long after the demise of ABC. I would also love to know if any of the ABC brands re-opened aside from Pope controlled ones. All this being said the 88 could very well have been a late addition to the lineup. Many of the catalogs are not marked with the year and so we have to go by models to identify the catalog. I have seen nearly identical catalogs (just a few changes) that seem to be from the same year and I have always believed there was often an early and late year edition catalog."
If you have any more information about the Model 88, send a note to al@fusionstudios.net If you want to know where this obsession started for me, visit http://www.fusionstudios.com/hill-climber
