Black Phantom Tandem at July Alameda Point Antiques Fair, plus Drum

[Carltonator]

Sunday 7/2/23 I spotted this Schwinn Black Phantom tandem at the July Alameda Point Antiques Fair…the dealer was asking $1,000.00…I was taken by the chain drive back seat sterring device…Q. is that common on tandems?...I’m into 19th- early 20th century racing bikes so I passed but it looked very interesting…

I did however get this drum...not sure of much of anything about it for now...The dealer I got it from, who I see around at shows, is Native American and a teacher…she said she got it from friends near a pow-wow at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Ledyard Connecticut…which is about 75 miles from Springfield Massachusetts where the Indian company was…only thing I know for sure is the patina looks old...like 1930ish...The original Indian motorcycles were made from 1901 to 1953 by the Hendee Manufacturing Company… the name was changed to the “Indian Motocycle Company” in 1923….I can’t find any other examples…which happens…Possibly on one hand, if Hendee Manufacturing Company issued the drum as an advertising piece before the name change the inscription might have been abbreviated to something like “Hendee Mfg. Co.”…not Hendee Indian Co…but that’s not written in stone…it could have been made after the name change and they were underlining the company history…especially considering the “1901” in the center…The Hendee company was very big on using Native American imagery and even adopted that nomenclature into their corporate culture…for example…company president George Hendee was called the Big Chief…co-founder and head designer Oscar Hedstrom was called the Medicine Man. The factory was called the Wigwam and the dealer network was called the Tribe. During the 1910s, Indian became the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world…Another guess would be that an Indian Motorcycle dealership may have made it for their showroom…all I know is it looks killer in my collection and I’m confident it’s old...

I’m now looking for photos of anyplace Indian motorcycles were exhibited between 1901-1953…such as International Exhibitions like the 1914 Panama Pacific Exhibition where Indian Motorcycles were featured…

-World’s Fairs

-State Fairs

-County Fairs

-Motorcycle Dealer Shows

-Motorcycle Dealer Showrooms

-carlton
SportsAntiques.com

 

[GTs58]

Looks like somebody just slapped a bunch of Schwinn decals on a Colson rear steer tandem. There was a discussion about that drum here on the Cabe not to long ago.

 

[Freqman1]

Agreed that's a Colson tandem and consensus on the drum is its a fake.

 

[HEMI426]

My guess is there is alot of those drums showing up at antique and vintage motorcycle swaps, I went to a few auctions where a Lindberg airplane oil jar showed up. It sold for stupid money. A week later another one at a different auction, then another, then another. Someone was making patina labels and putting them on old 1 gal. oil jars. It fooled alot of people for about a month or two. They probably moved to something else when everyone caught on. Buyer beware.

 

[49autocycledeluxe]

BLACK PHANTOM TANDEM ... say that 10 times really fast

 

[saladshooter]

I bet the Mona Lisa is real too.