Elgin Twin-Bars in the Sears Catalog
I’m late getting back here from answering a number of PM’s and weighing in on matters of CWC importance.
So… first of all, thanks Scott for posting the Sears catalog pages, It’s great to have you back and active on this site.
Scott’s posts cover the first and the third of seven biannual issues of the big Sears Consumer catalogs that offered the Twin-Bar Elgins. Before I post what I know about Twin-Bar frames I think this is a good time to review in general where we get our information about these bikes and what that information shows us and what it leaves open to deduction and speculation.
The following piece was actually a bit of a hard slog to pull together, I want this thread to have a goal of gathering everything we can as a group to increase our knowledge about Twin-Bars. I also don’t mean to come off as being too hard line on the standards for “accurate restoration.” It is a choice that some (probably only a few) collectors will make and is not inherently better than any other approach to enjoying or assembling a Twin-Bar. If an accurate restoration is the goal for someone, (or if you are considering purchasing an original or restored Twin-Bar) then the information gathered here will be very helpful in making key decisions based on a best-practices approach to finding, assembling, or restoring a 100 point bike.
Elgin Twin-Bars in the Sears Catalog
Sears offered the Elgin Twin-Bar model for about three and one half years beginning in the fall of 1938 and ending in late 1941 or early 1942. The model’s offering spans seven editions of their large, biannual mail order catalogs.
These biannual Sears mail order catalogs comprise the largest body of printed information collectors have used to study the Twin-Bar and its variations. Beyond the catalogs, there is at least one special seasonal flyer, a parts catalog, and patent office filings that are widely available in the public domain.
The information contained in those publications is a good basis for understanding the bike but there are limitations.
To begin with, the Twin-Bars themselves were built in batches by two different manufacturers and while there are clear differences that are manufacturer dependent, no mention of this was made in the Sears consumer literature.
The catalogs themselves are only the tip of the iceberg of the printed information that was produced by Sears and by the bicycle’s manufacturers. The manufactures produced and exchanged production and preproduction information with Sears’ design and marketing staff and Sears themselves produced much more detailed literature that was supplied to their retail stores for ordering purposes and other literature breaking down the bikes by model and part numbers for the purpose of ordering repair and replacement parts for them. None of that information is readily available today and for that reason, the information that most of us draw on is a limited picture of what was actually produced. This is made clear by variations found in original bikes that do not clearly match a specific documented catalog listing.
In addition to bicycles specified for, illustrated in, and marketed and sold through the mail order catalogs and seasonal flyers, versions were produced that were sold directly from the floor of Sears’ retail stores. Some of those bikes were no doubt identical to catalog bikes but some may have been built or ordered by the stores in configurations different from those offered in the catalogs.
Ultimately, because it is impossible to time travel to the place and time of origin for these bicycles or have a conversation with the people who designed the bikes or made the production decisions we will never be able to recreate a complete picture of the production of these bicycles. We will also be able to gather all the documentation that was produced to design and market them. At best, we can gather the information necessary to determine a general overview that will allow us to reasonably separate what is factory from what is fantasy.
It is impossible to know the extent of specifications and variations of all the Twin-Bars that left the factory(s), but while unknown, it is a finite number and choosing favorite features from several models, a la carte, may easily result is a variation that never actually existed
There will also always be bikes that appear to be original and correct that will try the limits of discernment, but with a well-understood background in the Twin-Bar, many obvious inconsistencies will become easy to spot. Then, if we choose to restore original bicycles or build replica clones of original models, there will be adequate information to provide accurate models and preclude inaccurate choices for those among us who care about such things.
