While Sweet Pea was teaching her fiddle students at the house yesterday, I headed out to run some errands........ and what would a day of errands be without a quick stop at the local treasure store, "Waste Not Want Not"? Well I'm glad I stopped by. I picked up a great bicycle head badge off of a pre-war Roadmaster Bicycle for 50 cents!
The Cleveland Welding Company manufactured and owned the Roadmaster brand of bicycles from about 1936 until the company was sold to AMF in 1951. This particular head badge came off of one of the pre-WW2 balloon tire bicycles, which would date this badge in the 1936 to 1941 time frame. Roadmaster bicycles were discontinued during the war years. These pre-war bicycles were from the "golden age" of the company, back when Roadmaster was associated with quality.
AMF purchased the Roadmaster brand in 1951 and the quality immediately dropped. In the 1990's all production was moved to Taiwan and the quality sank to its lowest level ever. The Roadmaster brand is now known as a junk, big-box, cheap bicycle, but that wasn't always the case. AMF also owned the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Company from 1960 to 1981......... not the best years for Harley Davidson.
Here's a few photos of the head badge:
And here are a few pages out of the 1939 Roadmaster Catalog:
Welding occupations are primarily concerned with joining, surfacing, fabrication or repairing structures or parts made of metal or other weldable materials. top lotos plasma cutter
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