Emperor by Kalbfleisch Bros?

Brian

I think there is Kalbfleisch bicycle in Stratford at Kalbfleisch Motors they are still in business today. I have not seen it so might not be true.I guess just go and ask.or phone them.

It is Kalbfleisch Bros Limited

Thanks Dave. The Kalbfleisch dealership in Stratford closed in 2006. The bicycle they had is now in the collection of the Stratford Perth Museum although not on display. I had a brief look at it last month and was unimpressed because it looked heavily restored and missing a head badge (if I remember correctly). It was that visit that prompted me to post the request for leads on other Kalbfleisch bikes. I'll be back at that museum later this month and will have a chance to have a closer look at it. If they let me take photos of it, I'll post them here. In the meantime, the question remains, is this the only surviving Kalbfleisch bike or are there others?

I'm meeting a member of the Kalbfleisch family next week. Other than the obvious WH questions, is there anything anyone wants me to ask about their history making the Emperor bicycle?

Photos: Kalbfleisch Emperor and Baby Emperor in the Stratford-Perth Museum.

I enjoyed a very nice chat with a member of the Kalbfleisch family during my time at the museum in Stratford. He brought with him a ledger from the Kalbfleisch Brothers business from the years 1899-1901. It showed a few bicycle sales mixed in with a variety of other business. The mens bike in the above photo was returned to the Kalbfleish family a number of years ago from the Scrimgeour family who owned the bike since new. The ledger showed a sale to Fred Scrimgeour of New Emperor bicycle # 610, for $75, on April 30, 1900. Fred traded in a used bicycle for $25 and had his lawnmower sharpened for 35 cents. We deduced that this is the same bike and dates from 1900. Unfortunately the bike doesn't have a head badge, but I noticed the same chainring pattern in photos of bikes in the Kalbfleisch shop in the same time period. I explained to Mr. Kalbfleisch that in the 1890s in Ontario it was possible to be an assembler of bicycles and buy everything one needed from tubing and lugs to saddles and hubs from suppliers, but I'm hoping that this pattern of 8 little holes in the center of the chainring is unique to Kalbfleisch and could be used to identify other Emperor bikes that might surface (if one believes in winning the lottery).

My main goal in speaking with Mr. Kalbfleisch was to determine the scale of bicycle manufacture by the K Bros. His opinion was that it was on a local scale and bikes were sold around the Stratford area and probably did not reach Toronto. Kalbfleisch Bros. never focused on bikes exclusively. They were a machine shop and provided manufacturing equipment to local businesses as well as running a bike shop. We looked at the serial numbers of new bikes recorded as sold in the ledger, and noticed that they were consecutive over the years 1899-1901. Fred Scrimgeour's number 610 was the last one in that ledger, so Mr. K speculated that maybe they made no more than 1,000 bikes or so over the course of their manufacture. The K. Bros. started selling automobiles in 1908, and Mr. K. thinks that bike manufacture probably concluded years before that, sometime after 1900. He also thinks that the two bikes in the Stratford Museum are probably the only surviving examples. IF another Emperor were ever to surface, it would probably be in the Stratford area.

The bike pictured above appears to have been heavily restored after surfacing from the Scrimgeour family. The pedals are made in Japan, for example. It's difficult to know what other parts were on the bike when found. Mr. K thought the wood rims were original but their perfectly round shape and stainless steel spokes make one wonder. The handle bars are Kelly ajustable. The front hub says GEM BARREL and the rear: GEM. The stem has BSA stamped on it. The pedal crank arms are different from each other; the right might be nickel plated and the left chrome plated. The seat post is unusual in that it seems to be in two halves and hinged in the middle. It's a real shame the head badge is missing. All the bikes in early photos of the K. Bros. bike shop have head badges. I will post those early photos once I received scanned copies from the museum.

There is documentation including photos of the Baby Emperor bicycle being in the family since new. It was passed on from one generation to the next and fixed up along the way. Mr. K believes it was not a one-off bike and the K. Bros. built them along with the adult bikes. It does share some similarities in build as the mens bike. There was an announcement in the newspaper of the day of the arrival of the Baby Emperor. The photos show that over the course of the 20th C. the fenders were added along with other changes. The museum has the original wood rims with hubs that came with the bike. Mr. K said his father couldn't find tires that fit the rims. They measure 17 1/2 inches across, maybe 17 inches from bead to bead. He also said they wanted it to have a hub brake so they added the newer steel wheels.

The serial numbers and daybook records for Emperor bikes are discussed on pages 96-100 in Glen Norcliffe's book The Ride to Modernity, which I discovered after typing my post. Glen doesn't mention to the two bikes discussed above, but he reviews some information found in a company ledger and explains that bikes numbered from 1 date from 1894, 100 from 1895, 200 from 1896 and so on, with bikes in the 600s made in 1900. As I had suspected, he describes them as an assembler on a small scale.