Does anyone know? I know it was made for sears, but im curious who actually built it?
Who manufactured the Elgin Bluebird?
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Elgin, right?
I diddnt know elgin manufactured bikes. I guess I just assumed it was like JC Higgins where other companys made bikes and badged them JC Higgins.
npence said:
Wow, I never knew... That's some good info.
I have a westfield built post war higgins
Columbia and Murray both made bike for Sears under the Elgin name , I believe some other manufacturers did also . As for who made the Bluebird , my guess is Murray , the chainring looks Murray , and a couple years later Murrray made the Mercury "World's Fair" bike .
Murray built bikes don't show up before 1938, the last year of the Bluebird. They started with copying existing frame styles, like the Oriole, but soon came up with their own designs. Murray built most Elgins and JC Higgins after that, but Sears always had small orders with other companies, including Westfield, Monark, Chain Bike/Ross, Stelber, and Huffy. -Adam
axsepul said:
There were some post-war JC Higgins bikes that were built in Austria (not Australia)
and the best way to tell is to look at the crank. They had a strange two or three piece steel crank instead of a 1 piece. For some reason Steyr is standing out as the manufacturer of these bikes.
I checked back thinking this one would have been answered quickly but the thread is going in a number of directions, some wrong.
Sears never took on manufacturing bicycles themselves but as a major retailer, they had enough clout to have things their way.
At the height of the prewar balloon period, they purportedly had an in-house bicycle group that worked with the manufacturers that supplied them with bikes to design or customize models to make them more exclusively “Elgin”. The Bluebird, and later the Elgin Twin Bars speak to this design relationship with outside manufacturers
Sears largest supplier from the early balloon years through about 1938 was Westfield Manufacturing, the company that had evolved out of Colonel Albert Pope’s Columbia brand, which is recognized as the first major American producer of Ordinary or High-Wheel bicycles.
The 1935-1937 Bluebird (and the later 1938 model) was manufactured exclusively by Westfield Manufacturing for Sears. The bike was also exclusively sold by Sears. The original design for the Bluebird was heavily patented and, interestingly, is credited in separarate patents to different inventors. The assignee on the patents is Sear Roebuck rather than Westfield so it is likely the design was originated either independently and sold to Sears or was drafted up by the in-house crew and then forwarded to Westfield for construction.
While I can see reasons that one might see “Murray” in the Bluebird, at the time of the bicycle’s introduction Murray-Ohio was producing tricycles and pedal cars and had not yet entered the field of bicycle production. When Murray did begin to produce bicycles (late 1936), they quickly became a powerhouse in that field and ultimately pushed Westfield aside to second-string status in the lucrative Sears supply chain. I recently read that some of Murray’s success was thought to come from their willingness to engineer their product to a cost for Sears, effectively shutting out the competition.
While Westfield and then Murray were the prime manufacturers of Elgin and later J. C. Higgins bicycles there were many smaller players that held smaller supply contracts for shorter periods of time but that is another topic.
Sears never took on manufacturing bicycles themselves but as a major retailer, they had enough clout to have things their way.
At the height of the prewar balloon period, they purportedly had an in-house bicycle group that worked with the manufacturers that supplied them with bikes to design or customize models to make them more exclusively “Elgin”. The Bluebird, and later the Elgin Twin Bars speak to this design relationship with outside manufacturers
Sears largest supplier from the early balloon years through about 1938 was Westfield Manufacturing, the company that had evolved out of Colonel Albert Pope’s Columbia brand, which is recognized as the first major American producer of Ordinary or High-Wheel bicycles.
The 1935-1937 Bluebird (and the later 1938 model) was manufactured exclusively by Westfield Manufacturing for Sears. The bike was also exclusively sold by Sears. The original design for the Bluebird was heavily patented and, interestingly, is credited in separarate patents to different inventors. The assignee on the patents is Sear Roebuck rather than Westfield so it is likely the design was originated either independently and sold to Sears or was drafted up by the in-house crew and then forwarded to Westfield for construction.
While I can see reasons that one might see “Murray” in the Bluebird, at the time of the bicycle’s introduction Murray-Ohio was producing tricycles and pedal cars and had not yet entered the field of bicycle production. When Murray did begin to produce bicycles (late 1936), they quickly became a powerhouse in that field and ultimately pushed Westfield aside to second-string status in the lucrative Sears supply chain. I recently read that some of Murray’s success was thought to come from their willingness to engineer their product to a cost for Sears, effectively shutting out the competition.
While Westfield and then Murray were the prime manufacturers of Elgin and later J. C. Higgins bicycles there were many smaller players that held smaller supply contracts for shorter periods of time but that is another topic.
Thanks for your knowledge. I was going to guess by suggesting that the down tube appears to have the same bend as the Robin which is decidedly a columbia/ westfield product but the headtube construction and chainwheel did have a murray look to them and was throwing me off.
Sounds like Sears as a company was way cool back then.
Sounds like Sears as a company was way cool back then.
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Don't you wish they'd make a reproduction of these bikes? I mean they re-made the black phantom, the stingrays, This would blow them all out of the water and guaranteed they'd fly off the shelves.
I would hate to see a repop of the bluebird would hurt the value of the originals in my opinion. just look at the luxury liner the original ones arent worth nearly what they used to be after they repop them.
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npence said:
Depends on the quality of the re-pop. The stingrays didn't loose much value if any when they re-poped them. And if you didn't already own an original one you'd probably get one. :wink: I'd just love to see bikes of that style again. The bikes nowdays just aren't as cool. There are some cool bikes out there but nothing even close to that.
