Originally Posted by
Salamandrine
...So did cantilevers precede centerpulls? It would appear so. It's also clear that there were numerous varieties of cantilever.
The brake that popularized the cantilever design was the Resillion, introduced in 1929. There may have been prior examples but the Resillion was the first with wide appeal.
MAFAC was the first of the modern centre-pull brakes but they did not invent the concept. Philips "central-pull" brakes were popular in the late 1930s and there may have been even earlier examples.