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Other Bike Names Used By Westfield Mfg. A Call For Help

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MrColumbia

Cruisin' on my Bluebird
As many of you know my main goal in this hobby is to collect information on every aspect of the Columbia/Pope/Westfield organization and then provide what I have learned on my website for all to use.

In that regard there is one loose end that I have not explored yet and have only speculation on. That is the brands/head badges used by the company other than the Columbia and Westfield brands. Specifically I’m looking at where each was marketed and if there is a pattern.

The Columbia and Westfield brands were of course nationally marketed so that is not the concern of this thread. It’s all the countless other names like Viking, Niagara, Seminole, Clipper, Corsair, Carnival, Miami just to name a few. I know there were hundreds of others and they all concern this endeavor. Were these randomly used or was each marketed in a specific region?

A working theory I have is they may have been targeted to specific areas of the country such as Niagara to the upstate New York area. I do not know if that is true or not but I do know of a lot of Niagara’s found in that area.

What I am asking is for anyone who has these non-Columbia/Westfield badged bikes and knows for sure where they were originally sold to contact me with the year of the bike and badge name and town or state sold in. You can post them in this thread or email me at [email protected] if you prefer. I will collect the data and if I can get enough and spot pattern I will have a better understanding of the company’s marketing strategy then I can publish the results.

Thank you all in advance for your participation in this study.
 
Ken,
I think you may be on to something there and I'm thinking it is linked to the distributors. Just curious if something like Niagra wasn't distributed by a specific company. Kind of like the TruTest bikes in Philly. I am getting a Seminole this week and have contacted a previous owner as to any history on the bike and will pass along anything useful. V/r Shawn
 
That is awesome. Good luck with that.
I have a 1937 Syracuse badged bike but I don't know where it was sold....
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From my observation, many of the off badges were used by certain store chains. I suppose back then, you didn't need a giant order to get custom badging. Westfield certainly didn't need any extra names, after buying up all those companies after the TOC bicycle bust! (Rambler, Miami, Racycle, Sterling, etc). NBJ's 'Introduction to Classic Bicycles' book has a badge listing for most makers of the era. It has about 40 listed under 'Westfield private bagdes', many of which I've never seen, nor heard of!
 
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