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Hyslop motorbike, 1922

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Another photo of the Hyslop building at the NW corner of Victoria and Shuter. You can see the word Bicycles on the corner, 2nd floor, above the Cadillac sign. This pic was taken in 1919, three years after the other pic from the 1916 article above. It looks like business was good and they spruced up their facade a little. So if this was their retail dealership, shipping room and offices, and in the basement they stored tires, where the heck was their bicycle factory?

HyslopBrosVictoria&Shuter.jpg
 
Hey Patric, thank you for helping! and thank you for identifying the chainring. Please don't take our lack of help/response to your helpful posts personally. The truth is there are so very few of us (CDN bicycle collectors) around to offer any kind of response, and from among this small group I think almost nothing is known about the Hyslop Brothers. The closest thing we have in Canada to the CABE is a site called Vintageccm.com. I started a thread there about Hyslop and didn't get a single response from anyone. You can still hear the crickets. The 1916 article posted by Barracuda just now has taught me more about Hyslop than I've known in my lifetime up until now, and I wrote my major university paper on "Technological Innovation in the Canadian Bicycle Industry". Hyslop doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, but the Fran's Diner restaurant that occupies the spot at the NW corner of Victoria and Shuter where the Hyslop building used to stand has a Wikipedia page. I've eaten in that Fran's and at the time I had no idea that 100 years ago I would have been sitting in the Hyslop Cadillac showroom (For anyone who's visited Toronto, Hyslop was located across the street from Massey Hall, just east of the Eaton's Centre.) Anyway, Patric, thanks for giving at least one hoot about Canadian bikes, if not two hoots :) Please keep the great info flowing north. Cheers.


Thank you for your response, Brian R.

It is apparent that you are a gentleman, and a scholar.
Please count on me to continue to be helpful, when I can.

....... patric
 
Patric,

Don't give up hope, hopefully more info will surface. I live on the border with Canada,because of that I am exposed to some bikes of Canada.I will admit though,I know very little of Hyslop . I have a friend across the river that really knows his stuff about bikes of Canada .He does not do the whole internet thing. I will see if He has any paper goods and experience on this subject.
 
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Most of us Canadian collectors, are either scholars, working mens, family mens or in some cases all or none of the above
fortunately for me, work and family, take precedence over posting a pictures for someone who wants it done on command

your help M. ...... patric is appreciated, but your condescendant tone surely is not

If an american had the time to do it before a Canadian, that is great and who cares who does it
remember that where a fellow collector lives ..... means nothing
and that the Canadian demographics is surely at our disadvantage
 
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THE HYSLOP ENIGMA - this is what I will call the strange lack of information and surviving bicycles from a company that seems to have been a major player in the Canadian bicycle business over four decades - 1889-1920s(?). I found nothing when researching the academic paper I mentioned in post #20 above. There's nothing in John McKenty's book "Canada Cycle & Motor, the CCM Story, and nothing in Glen Norcliffe's book "The Ride to Modernity, the Bicycle in Canada, 1869-1900." The Hyslop Bros. 1922 catalogue, the company's wholesale catalogue opens with the following: "When a firm engaged in building Bicycles for 33 years can withstand the forces of competition and still retain its leadership..." and on page 2: "For thirty-three years Hyslop bicycles have been made in Toronto and shipped to all points of the Dominion." So where are the bikes? I don't have one yet. Dave Brown has been collecting for decades and has never seen one. Max, Ken, and Mario each have (at least) one each. There's the black Motorbike model listed in an above post, so that's four. How many more are there out there? If there are any CABE'rs out there who have one can you post a photo of it?

There are three things that I am trying to find out about Hyslop:

1. Hyslop claims to have been a "manufacturer" but to what extent is this true? Did they weld tubing together and buy everything else from suppliers? Did they import complete frame sets from American companies and throw on some British hubs and Canadian wood rims? Is the answer both, and that it changed over the years?

2. They had a nice three story building at the corner of Victoria and Shuter in downtown Toronto but by the 1916 it was a Cadillac dealership with retail space, shipping space, office space and tire storage. They were still printing bicycle catalogues in 1922, so where was their bicycle "factory"? (if they were importing complete bikes by then, maybe they had a warehouse and no factory)?

3. What happened to Hyslop Bros. in the end? Did their car business make their bike business slowly fade away and then their Cadillac business was absorbed by General Motors? Was it killed by the Great Depression? What was their last year of bicycle sales?

Anyone?
 
1. Hyslop claims to have been a "manufacturer" but to what extent is this true? Did they weld tubing together and buy everything else from suppliers? Did they import complete frame sets from American companies and throw on some British hubs and Canadian wood rims? Is the answer both, and that it changed over the years?
Anyone?

My rear hub is a Eadie, and rims are the steel-lined wood model.
 
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