Unknown Early Tricycle With Hand Brake
Q: I have a tricycle that has a wooden seat and a hand brake on the handle bars, this puts a brake onto the front wheel. I know that this was purchased in the 1930′s but have not found any information. Hopefully you can answer my questions regarding the manufacturer and the time frame.
A: We’ve never seen one with that brake setup before. It looks like it could very well possibly be from before the 1930′s, back into the 1920 era. There were a lot of manufacturers that made very similar tricycles, Columbia being one of the largest. Without markings, it is sometimes hard to identify them. Your trike has very unique handlebars, but not any that we’ve seen attributed to a certain maker.
If you’re up for some research, you can do patent searches on Google (use the Google patent specific search – http://www.google.com/patents). You can wade through the hundreds of tricycle brake mechanism patents, and maybe you might find yours.
