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Monark Silver King Hex Frame Data

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A special version of New Departure was standard on all of the hextube Silver Kings. The 1948 and 1949 versions even had an additional new bent-style brake arm and special aluminum brake band. All specially made just for the hextube Silver King.

You can see my unmolested original 1948 pictured in the first magazine history of the Silver King "hextube" (a name I coined in the 1970s for these bicycles). Pictured with the correct original unmolested headlight and lens. The only thing original not pictured in the magazine was my original redwall which had turned to crispy critters and would not work even for photographing. So I substituted whitewalls. When I displayed my 1948 hextube at the Oakland Museum I had changed to red-tread whitewalls, but could never find a decent set of original redwalls (see the full article).

This history was written and published in the 1980s in Cyclist magazine which was sold on news stands nationwide. Prior to that, I wrote the very first history of Silver King "hextube" in the 1970s in the hobby's first newsletter, Classic Bicycle & Whizzer News. Decades before the internet or photocopy "books." This first article in CBWN was on 1947 Silver King hextube.

I began collecting Silver Kings and literature and history about them in the 1950s. The company sent me the prototype Silver King hextube frame and other experimental parts like a purple anodized headset. Unfortunately my prototype frame was STOLEN when my property was robbed over 20 years ago. I still have the papers that go with that frame and the entire story behind it. I knew the Monark-Silver King people who did the engineering and fabrication of these bicycles...

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

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