All right, this what I have found so far -
Liberia was established by Antoine Biboud, first in Vinay in 1918, then in its more permanent form in Grenoble in 1925. They manufactured bicycles, motorcycles and mopeds. Biboud was an early adopter of derailleur gearing and sponsored road and cyclocross racer Auguste Segaude, 1928 3rd place in the cyclocross world championships - and here’s
a clip of the 1929 Championnat de France Cyclocross , because we always need to see some cool footage, yes?
In 1954 (or 1956, depending on the source!) Liberia established a pro racing team that included Wim Van Est (famous for his 70 meter fall in the ‘51 TdF and for being the first Dutchman to wear yellow) and
Henri Anglade, who was Champion of France in ‘59 and 2nd place in the Tour and wore yellow for two days in 1960. The team was closed down in 1962, then partnered with RMO for a team c.1988-90. They folded in the early to mid-90s, with final liquidation in 1996 and the factory was bulldozed in 1998.
For overall information, start with
Norris Lockley's post on classicrendezvous.com , then go to
this article by Pierre Astier and Didier Mahistre that has much bicycle information included in an article primarily focused on motorcycles, as well as
this article. The Liberia enthusiast pages that I can find include the
veloliberia.overblog site and a
Liberia Facebook group, both of which include early to mid-70s catalogs reproduced online. There was also apparently an exhibition in Grenoble celebrating these bikes, with several links out there like
this one.
Searching for Liberia information on French cycling enthusiasts forums that are analogues to ours leads to the
Velos Vintage a GoGo and
Tonton Velo links here. Lots of good pix, etc.
If you wish, have a look at a now-closed online auction featuring pictures of a
NOS-with-parts-still-wrapped-up Liberia very similar to mine (this one has Solida cranks and probably 700C rims and is smaller).
Regarding Liberia in the U.S. - as is noted in some of the links above, Liberia was far more interested in selling bikes in France than anywhere else. The Liberias that I see popping up in the U.S. primarily fall into two groups - true bike boom era c.1972-ish with the decals like mine and similar components but either with or without chromed fork tips, and the same bike from circa 1975-76 with slightly later decals, sometimes with "Liberia 102" tubing labels at the top of the down tube. So far I think they're mostly popping up in or near the Southeast, though our esteemed Chas. Colaric has in another venue described selling basic Grand Deluxe variants similar to mine, a few slightly nicer ones with cotterless steel Nervar cranks, and maybe one with Reynolds or Vitus tubing and professional-grade French parts c.1976-77.
The gentleman I got mine from said it came out of the bike shop Joe Azar used to run at 911 Sumter St. in Columbia, right next to the University of South Carolina. Allegedly, there was one other dealer in SC located in what is now the Basil Thai Restaurant at 460 King St in Charleston.