Tricycle Fetish Blog

Q: Found a very unique horse tricycle at an antique store. Wondering if you’ve ever seen anything like it.  Unfortunately, the photos were taken with my cell phone so they are not great.    Do you think it’s a “real” antique piece or a more modern piece?  Just FYI, the price they have this marked is $550.

A:  The tricycle is not a modern piece, but it really isn’t antique either.  It was probably made circa 1930’s.  We’ve never seen one just like this, and do not know the maker.  The cell phone pics weren’t great, so it’s hard to tell much about its condition, but the price seems reasonable for an antique store.

A: Would you know of a company that made three wheel bicycles for adults that were seven speed I believe.My husband and I had a bike given to us and I can’tfind info.on it.The info I have is Re Bike Boca Raton,Fla. and it’s called ReTrike 707 sold at Mountain Bikes LTD Patent #201,538 and that’s at Mount Getna,Pa. That’s all the info . the bike has on it.Could you please help us .

B: Your tricycle is most likely a recumbent adult tricycle, sort of like the one pictured above (though pic is not a Retrike – could not find a picture of a Retrike 707).  It was most likely made in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s by a company called Retrike that built recumbent trikes and bikes.  The company seems to be defunct now.  Your trike originally retailed for around $500.  If you have questions about repairing your trike, you should take it to your local bicycle shop and they should be able to help you with any parts or repair needs.

Q: With regards to my Colson Tri Cycle the Size of the back tire is 14 x 1.75 I have a couple of questions?

1. The rim have a place for an inner tube, can one be put on the rim and if so do you have any tubes and tires?

2. Do you have any new Spokes for that size of the Wheel and what is the cost, also what is the length of the spokes?

3. Do you have the bearing’s for the wheels and what is the cost?

A:  I will try to answer your questions, but the easiest answer is to just take your tricycle to your local bicycle shop.  They will have spokes, bearings, tubes and tires, or will be able to special order them.

1. Are you sure that your tricycle takes an inner tube?  Are you sure it isn’t a pneumatic tire rim?  You can read our post on types of tricycle tires if you aren’t sure.

2. The spokes we currently have in stock are listed in our online catalog.  The easiest thing to do is simply measure the old spokes to get the length.   If you for some reason do not have any of the old spokes, you’ll need to just take it to a bicycle shop and have them build you one.  Because if you don’t know how to measure for spokes, you probably don’t know how to build a wheel.

3. We have bearings for press-in type hubs where the bearings in their casing are pressed into the hub.  These can be found in our online catalog in the sizes that we offer.  If some cases you can use loose ball bearings and others you can use bearings with a retainer, it all depends on what type of tricycle and wheels that you have.  Again, the simplest thing to do is to take it to your local bicycle shop and ask them.  Once they have the tricycle in front of them, they should be able to answer all of the questions and get you the parts.  They probably won’t be able to get you pneumatic tires if that’s what they turn out to be – and you may be in for a long hard and expensive look trying to find a set of those.

Q: Wondering if its worth anything or is it worth fixing.

A:  You look to have a mid-late 1960’s Murray tricycle.  From the photo that you provided it’s hard to tell what is dirt and what is rust and where, but it looks to be a combination of both.  If you were going to have the tricycle professionally restored, it will cost hundreds of dollars…and not hundreds as in two hundreds, many hundreds.  If you did it yourself, you’ll still spend a ton of money and a lot of time fixing it up.

If this was your tricycle when you were young and it has sentimental value, they sure, it might make sense to fix it up, refurbish it or restore it.  If you plan on making money on it, you won’t make any profit after restoration or refurbishing.

You can make it look a lot more appealing simply by washing it.  You can also use a bit of chrome polish on the chrome areas, and within a minute or two you will see a huge improvement.  A good cleaning and a bit of a polish will go a long way in increasing resale value

Where can I get my tricycle repaired?  That’s a question that we get asked a lot.  The simplest answer is apparently not the most obvious, and that is at your local bicycle shop.  With the expansion of big box stores the number of local bicycle sales & repair shops has dwindled, but most every town with 10K people or more has at least one, or in a worse case scenario, you might have to drive to the next town.

You can use Google to find shops in your area.  Once you’ve located one, keep in mind that the shop is unlikely to have parts for your tricycle, especially if it’s vintage or antique or a daycare model.  You should be extremely polite and gracious when dealing with your local shop, and be willing to spend some money (after all, if you can’t do the repair yourself, you shouldn’t expect to find someone to do it for nothing).  If you need parts, the shop may have to go through a significant amount of paperwork and hassle to get set up as a dealer with certain manufacturers and distributors, and may have to make a considerable minimum order for some.  So be prepared for the shop to tell you that it basically isn’t worth it to do all the credit apps and order $1000 worth of merchandise in order to replace the rear wheel on your kid’s Kettler.

It’s better to make a call to your local shop, describe your problem and what needs fixed, and ask them if they have the necessary parts.  Be ready to order your parts online if they don’t have them.  Make sure to always ask the bike shop if they have parts first.  They may not say anything, but no shop likes putting parts that were purchased online or at another store on a bicycle or tricycle brought into their store.

Hourly rates at bicycle shops probably average in the $20-40 range.

If you are looking to have a tricycle restored, visit our Tricycle Services page for a number of restorers.  Auto body and car restoration shops are also a good place to inquire about tricycle restorations as they have the equipment and know-how to paint the tricycle.

Q: I have a tricycle built by Colson and as shown on your website as Colson tricycle of the 1950s. I am refinishing one for my grandaughter and am in need of a new seat or to have mine recovered with leather or leather substitute. Can you help me with either?

A: We do not perform this service, however you should be able to find a local upholsterer that will do the job.  Any upholsterer should be able to do it.  It shouldn’t cost a fortune, but look to shell out around $25-50 for the service and materials.

Q: I recently acquired a trike, seem to be a Miami Sun Deluxe, however I can not find any information on it or it’s model and am not even sure if this is really the model and of course no idea on the year, the trike is very rusted and needs restoration.  I would like to restore with original parts.

A: You look to have an early Miami Sun adult tricycle, probably from the late 1970’s or 1980’s – hard to tell from the one photo.  If you need an exact model number or year, you might be able to contact Miami Sun….but really I don’t think it matters too much.  Before you start restoring it, you need to ask yourself why you want to restore it.   Because honestly, you will never get the value back out of the tricycle that you put into it.  It isn’t something that is going to be collectible, probably ever.  You can buy brand new adult tricycles for a few hundred dollars.  Finding original parts is going to be quite difficult if not impossible, and likely quite costly, with very little return.

If you want to fix it just for yourself to ride, you should be able to get some used parts on the internet from that time period for not too much money, including a more realistic handlebar for that tricycle, which would be mostly flat with a small rise sweeping back.  When looking for old parts for adult tricycles, focus more on the vintage bicycle sites rather than tricycle sites, as the parts are the same as on bicycles of that era.

We recently received an email inquiry about the horse tricycle pictured at the left.  There’s a curved glass oak china cupboard in the background, so it’s safe to say that the owner’s bought it because it was an antique, or so they thought.

Part of what makes gaining knowledge about tricycles and collecting them so difficult is the lack of information and the other is scarcity.  In over a decade of dealing with tricycles and antiques in general I’ve never personally seen any type of horse tricycle for sale (not an antique one anyway).  Not at an auction, not at estate sales, yard sales, barn sales, not from pickers….and I’ve only seen a couple legitimate old ones at antique stores.

Yet every week there are a handful on eBay, most of them obvious fakes that were made within the past ten years.  And some are miniature fakes, decorative items only a foot tall or so, but in an eBay listing can be pictured as if they are normal sized.

Every once in awhile, we get photos like the one above.  The tricycles have cobwebs and dust on them and sometimes there is a bit of damage.  The problem is though, that the tricycle appears to have no wear whatsoever that would be associated with it being 100+ years old.  Little dings and breaks don’t count, as they could have occurred days before the photo was taken.

Other issues that I have with the authenticity of the tricycle are the wooden rims, which are even rarer to find than horse tricycles, yet nearly all replicas/fakes/reproductions have the wooden rims.  Also the wheels are held on with cotter pins.  While cotter pins were used on tricycles in the late 1800’s, using them to hold on wheels is not common, especially on hulky machines like this one.   The brown paint looks to have been applied sparingly to give the look of wear, but it is uneven compared to what normal wear would look like, and yet uniform over the entire surface.

If I were to venture a guess, and that’s what it would be without seeing the tricycle in person or at least having better pictures, I would say that this particular horse tricycle was probably a reproduction made in the 1960’s or thereabouts.  It could even be much newer and stored in a way to make the dust make it seem older.

For some more insight to some of the ways to tell if your tricycle is a fake, visit our Fakes & Reproductions page.

Q: Hello, I just paid for access to your online price guide and have a old trike that I was hoping to get some info on.  It looks to be wrought iron/steel with wooden wheels shod in steel straps like a old wagon wheel, except the spokes are steel rods.  Overall condition appears to be good with wheels/steering/pedals all moving freely.It looks  as if the seat was (re?) covered with a padded plastic/vinyl cover at some time.

The previous owner used it as interior decoration and looks as if he had it painted/varnished (wheels, handgrips, seat are obviously brown paint and frame may be same or a varnish).  Any info and it and a ballpark idea of value would be appreciated.

A:  Sadly, your tricycle is a fake.  It is a decorative item, probably made in China in the past few years, but being sold in the US as “antique” to unsuspecting buyers.  For the current selling prices on eBay, you can simply type “Antique Tricycle” into the completed items search and you’ll more than likely get a range of prices from 99 cents to hundreds of dollars.  These are worth roughly $15-30 for their decorative value, tops.  They aren’t rare, so paying shipping on one the whole way across the country isn’t necessary.  I’ve seen these for $5 at flea markets and wasn’t even tempted to buy one at that price.

If you paid a bunch of money for it, I would request your money back and you could always buy a more reasonably priced one.  For more info on antique fakes, visit our Fake Antique Tricycles page.

Q:Inquiring if you know where to obtain parts for a Girl’s Fisher Price Trike, #2636. Specifically looking for a seat. Trike has sentimental value and would like to keep. Thanks!!!!
A: Sorry, we don’t have anything like that. You should try contacting Fisher-Price. Also there are always a lot of used FP tricycles on eBay.

Q: This trike wagon I have looks a lot like a Garton Delivery Cycle, but some things do not.  It has grips on the handlebars that say Western Flyer, but otherwise there are no markings.  Can you tell me anything about this trike? Rick

A: Your tricycle looks to be a Garton Delivery Cycle that someone has repainted and added some different parts.  It looks as if someone repainted the lettering and added a Philadelphia Flyers hockey team logo to the front of the lettering.  The handlebars look to be late 1960’s or 1970’s ape hanger type bars that were available on many different trikes – the grips were probably original to the handlebars.  As far as the effect on the value, it shouldn’t hurt anymore than the repaint job.

A lot of the questions we at TricycleFetish.com receive have to deal with identification of tricycles.  We do our best to identify the maker, model and age.   There is a group of tricycles though that we know very little about, and are not likely to….probably ever.  And those tricycles are newer contemporary Asian produced tricycles like the one at the left.

The tricycle pictured above was probably made in the 1980’s or thereabouts in Asia….somewhere.  It has no markings or maker’s marks or serial numbers etc., which is common.  Usually there are no stickers or labels either.  These tricycles are usually made in factories by companies with names most people cannot pronounce, in towns with names that most people can’t pronounce.

When trying to sell or value these newer Asian tricycles, knowing the maker’s name, location and exact age is really not important.  They usually are not worth very much to begin with, aren’t very old and are usually in poor condition since they were made cheaply with inferior materials to begin with.

In the future we’ll add some more examples of these types of tricycles.

Q: Can you help me determine what era this trike is from? All I can get off of it is that it is a Western Flyer, any info you can come up with would be great.  Thanks

A: Your tricycle is a circa 1940 trike that was made by Murray and branded as a Western Flyer for sale in Western Auto hardware stores.  These tricycles were also branded under the Mercury name as well.  You can visit our Murray page for more info and photos of similar tricycles.

Q: I bought an old Taylor trike and the front tire is shot. I was wondering if the 16′ wheel and tire combo. you have for sale would work for my trike. the size looks pretty close. I was hoping you might be able to help me in that this is the first trike I have bought and I don’t know much about them . Thanks for any help. Keith.

A: First look at the tricycle’s hub.  Does it look similar to this?

Circa 1930's or 40's Taylor Tricycle Hub & Crankset With Pedals

Pictured is a Taylor hub, bearings, fork mounts, crankset and pedals that is indicative of what most Taylor hubs looked like.  Taylor wheels were built with spokes and nipples (like bicycle wheels) that could be adjusted, rather than spokes that were simply welded to the rim and hub.  If this is the case with your tricycle, you could not use our 16 inch wheelset, at least not without getting new cranks and possibly new pedals.

You should however, be able to take the tire off the 16 inch rim and put it on your rim, supposing it is of close enough size.  Oddly the cost of the rims on our wheels is negligible when compared to what it would cost to have a bicycle shop build you a new one with spokes.  If our tire will fit your rim, we can remove it from the rim for shipment and will offer a discount on just the rubber.

Q: Hello, I recently bought this tricycle at auction. I have not been able to find any pictures on your site that look like this tricycle. Can you give me some more information on the year.  Thank you for your help……..John

A: Your tricycle looks to be circa 1920’s or possibly early 1930’s.  The model is a Skippy Racer made by American National or by Gendron, depending on whether your tricycle was made before or after the 1927 takeover.  Determining the exact year is difficult without having the original catalogs from that time period, and many tricycle models were made for numerous years.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting the original photo and question, we received another question about the same model tricycle from another visitor to the site. Oddly, that Skippy was photographed in front of a fireplace too.

The Skippy brand was named after the Skippy comic strip that started in the mid-1920’s.  Skippy trikes were produced by the American National umbrella corporation that included such lines as American, Skippy, Gendron, and Pioneer.

Q: Could you give me some information on this tricycle and is it worth 100-150?

A: Your tricycle was made in the early 1950’s, probably by Garton for sale in Western Auto stores under the brand name Western Flyer.  The Delivery Cycle text on the sides looks to have been repainted in the photos.  As far as value goes, sorry, we do not give out values.

Q: I have a Colson Flyer Tricycle. I was told the age of it is late 20’s early 30’s. Have searched for pictures/information on it on various sites and have found nothing about it. I was wondering if you have any information or pictures that you can forward on to me because I would like to restore it. It has a 16″ front wheel; leather saddle seat; steal handle bars without grips (did it come with grips ????). Any information that you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

A: You can check out our Colson information page for some pictures of other Colson tricycles from that time period.  I don’t think we have any pictures of that exact model in that color scheme.   Some of the pictures you sent were a bit blurry, but your tricycle doesn’t look to be in very bad condition and looks to retain much of the original paint.

One think to keep in mind before beginning a restoration project is your goal.  Most likely a real restoration on that tricycle will cost a large amount of money and time.  ….money that you will never see returned in an increased value for the tricycle.  If you’re just looking to refurbish the tricycle a little bit for your own entertainment, that’s fine too, but I’d recommend finding all the parts, paint etc. prior to beginning the task.  We get a lot of questions from people who are half-way done with something and realize that they need tires or this little part or that little part.

You’re dating of the tricycle seems to be pretty accurate.  Without having Colson catalogs from every year to check the color schemes, it would be hard to tell the exact year.  You can check some of the pictures of old Colsons and  other tricycles from that time period on our manufacturers pages to get an idea of what type of grips would have been on tricycles at that time.  But again, the exact Colson catalog from that time would be the most accurate way to tell what grips you need.  Good luck.

Q: My friend found this tricycle in the ground while excavating. I see similar trikes however not the exact one. I have pictures of the trike and a close-up of the identifying sticker with patents #’s and everything. I think that the trike is very old but would really love to have more info on it. Like perhaps the year and maybe a ballpark price. Thank you in advance for your time. Wanita

A: You’ve found a late 1930’s (circa 1937 or thereabouts) Hedstrom Minute Man tot tricycle.  These are somewhat rarer than the larger versions of the Minute Man.  Your tricycle appears to be in great condition for being buried.  Most of the time the decals are missing.  You can view more models of the Minute Man on our Hedstrom information page.  When you find patent numbers intact, you can always check Google’s patent search to get more info too.

As far as value goes, we do not give specific prices on our blog and only give estimates and appraisals to those who’ve purchased our online price guide, but I will tell you that your tricycle does have some decent value – at least as far as tricycles go.