When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Need help sorting out this Monark.

-
I dated it from 38-41 by identifying the New Departure brake arm. So, that makes sense. You're the first person to acknowledge the serial number on the rear. EVERYTHING I have read states it should be on the bottom bracket, But I've seen at least one other stamped here.
Here are a few pics of prewar Five Bars I've owned--all '40/'41

DSC_0201 - Copy.JPG


DSC_0835.JPG


girls 4 tank3.jpg


proj5.JPG
 
I picked this up today at a swap meet for $30. As you can tell it has the serial plate on the bottom bracket. Serial number is A0038335. According to the serial number data I found on here by John, it shouldn't have a serial number lower than 118106. So, what year is it? I'm finding a lot of discrepancies on Monark bikes.

View attachment 1802366

View attachment 1802377
The Monark-Silver King, Inc. factory records... which do indeed exist at National Bicycle History Archive of America (NBHAA.com) indicate this is (was) a 1946-1/2 Rocket Model 3106 "Unequipped" model. It is missing the front fender assembly. No guessing. No "1938"...no 1950s. No prewar.

This particular one was offered in a sales promotion.

Leon Dixon
NBHAA.com
 
I wouldn't be surprised. I have a skip tooth 24" Rocket that's stamped on the left rear (fork?) at the axle. I've only seen one other bike stamped there.

View attachment 1802403

View attachment 1802404
The bicycle in this set of photos– as I have stated previously and elsewhere– is definitely not modified. At least the frame is not modified. Not 1938. And no need to guess what it is. This bicycle is (was) a DeLuxe Rocket Junior, Model 104. It was made in 1940. It is missing many of the original parts including the special tank and twin headlights.

Again, records DO exist on these bicycles and those records (curated and collected decades ago by Leon Dixon) are at National Bicycle History Archive of America. (NBHAA.com)

Leon Dixon
National Bicycle History Archive of America (NBHAA.com)
 
Last edited:
The bicycle in this set of photos– as I have stated previously and elsewhere– is definitely not modified. At least the frame is not modified. Not 1938. And no need to guess what it is. This bicycle is (was) a DeLuxe Rocket Junior, Model 104. It was made in 1940. It is missing many of the original parts including the special tank and twin headlights.

Again, records DO exist on these bicycles and those records (curated and collected decades ago by Leon Dixon) are at National Bicycle History Archive of America. (NBHAA.com)

Leon Dixon
National Bicycle History Archive of America (NBHAA.com)
I can't thank you enough for that info. BIG KUDOS to you Sir.
 
You are most welcome.

But the best way to show thanks is to stop repeatedly crediting "john" with the entire Monark serial list info. While much of what is on that list is fiction and WAG (wild-assed guesses), the bits that are accurate originated primarily from me. Unfortunately whoever first printed this stuff did not choose to tell people where this info was really, actually sourced and thus took credit for ALL of it.

As for the claims about how rare the serial number is on the left axle slot ear, not true. Many MSK products had serial numbers in this location before the war. I have owned hundreds of them over the years. I once had piles of prewar Monark "Super Frame" bicycles and many were stamped likewise (couldn't give them away back in the 1970s and 1980s). I wrote their first history decades ago in CBWN, which was the very first newsletter in the hobby and in fact started the hobby. It has often been imitated, but it was never equalled.

Anyway, Monark's serial number location was so convenient and so intelligent that the almighty Schwinn began imitating it on their own bicycles... as of 1952. Nobody seemed to realize that this "brilliant invention" was merely an imitation of Monark.

Leon Dixon
National Bicycle History Archive of America
(NBHAA.com)

CBWN27–2.jpeg
 
Last edited:
You are most welcome.

But the best way to show thanks is to stop repeatedly crediting "john" with the entire Monark serial list info. While much of what is on that list is fiction and WAG (wild-assed guesses), the bits that are accurate originated primarily from me. Unfortunately whoever first printed this stuff did not choose to tell people where this info was really, actually sourced and thus took credit for ALL of it.

As for the claims about how rare the serial number is on the left axle slot ear, not true. Many MSK products had serial numbers in this location before the war. I have owned hundreds of them over the years. I once had piles of prewar Monark "Super Frame" bicycles and many were stamped likewise (couldn't give them away back in the 1970s and 1980s). I wrote their first history decades ago in CBWN, which was the very first newsletter in the hobby and in fact started the hobby. It has often been imitated, but it was never equalled.

Anyway, Monark's serial number location was so convenient and so intelligent that the almighty Schwinn began imitating it on their own bicycles... as of 1952. Nobody seemed to realize that this "brilliant invention" was merely an imitation of Monark.

Leon Dixon
National Bicycle History Archive of America
(NBHAA.com)

View attachment 1804417
Great information. I have no clue who John is/was. I just mentioned it so people didn't think I was taking "WAG." I'm 65 and back in 1967 I started a used bike shop out of the building on the end of my grandparents car wash in Moraine Ohio. My grandparents found someone closing out a bike shop and bought their inventory for $100. It filled the upper level of a barn. I had several skip tooth bikes and nobody wanted them. So, I didn't mess with them. I had a 20" Shelby skip tooth with a locking fork no one wanted. Eventually I sold all the old stuff to a friend's dad for $50 and never got paid. That was a lot of money to a then 13 y.o. kid in 1970. My grandfather was into Whizzers and had a few. I had a 24" Pacemaker I bought for $25 and sold for $75 to buy my first car. Around 1972 we went to a motorbike meet in Chillicothe Ohio where they started the Vintage Motor Bike Club. I am a charter member and still have my card somewhere.
 
You're welcome.

I lost track long ago of how many shops I bought out since the 1960s. But one dealer I bought out in Missouri had thousands of bicycles and parts. Most left from when a shop was closed down during World War II. Of course, 80% of everything was prewar. There were over 10,000 WHEELS... truckloads full. Gave many of them away. Some of them supposedly went into an "art wall" in Kansas City area... but I never saw that wall to this day.

I assure you, nobody wanted most of what I had for many, many years. Some laughed at me for saving the stuff. Then it went from ridicule to years later, some began to imitate what I was doing.

Regarding Whizzer stuff? I started saving it in the 1950s. I saved every paper item I ever came across. When the company closed, I went up to Pontiac and emptied dumpsters. There was also a place (a kind of junk store) on North Woodward Avenue that had lots and lots of Whizzer parts and some literature. I got all of their paper and a lot of their parts. And a friend who people think "bought out the company" had boxes of paper he did not want in the 1970s. I bought all of it. I also got much of Floyd Clymer's Whizzer stuff back in the 1970s and saved it. Clymer's Whizzer papers were a large part of Breene-Taylor's records and photos of the original prewar friction-drive Whizzer Model D, E... and then F and G (which nobody except me seems to know about today). For a while I owned Whizzer motor #003.

I also had a girlfriend from Luxembourg and I got her to go retrieve all she could from Luxembourg, back in the late 1970s/early 1980s. She also helped me interview the person in charge of Whizzer Luxembourg which was Whizzer Motorbike Company's European branch.

I have saved a file for just about every motorizing kit and motorbike ever made during the classic bicycle era (which I define– and I did it first– as 1920 to 1965). But of course NBHAA has thousands of Whizzer paper items. Thousands. And a bulging file of others.

Here are a few items for you to enjoy...

Leon Dixon
National Bicycle History Archive of America
(NBHAA.com)

WhizzerAgesWM.jpg


ModelD&EitemsWM.jpg


WhizzerLuxembourgWM.jpg


WhizzerBlueprintsSvc&Dealerbook.JPG
 
Back
Top