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Old 09-21-21, 07:17 AM
  #444  
T-Mar
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Actually, I have prior knowledge of both Macleod's and their Hiawatha house brand. The company's origins date to 1917, when Roland M. Macleod established a Winnipeg based, mail order farm supply business, known as Macleod's Limited. Circa 1928, an additional warehouse location was established in Saskatoon with the company adding retail operations at both locations. In 1930, the first strictly retail store was established in Melfort, Sakatchewan. More retail stores followed with the company diversifying into hardware and building supplies. By 1945 the company had 27 stores, In 1948 they started a franchise program, quickly expanding to a peak of 220 stores in 1964, of which 143 were franchises. Store locations ranged from Fort Williams, Ontario, to Prince George, British Columbia.

The Hiawatha house brand was created in 1946, with the first product being bicycles. Extant samples of early, post war Hiawatha bicycles indicate CCM as a source.

It's ironic that you mention Ace Hardware as a example, as a series of corpoarate acquistions eventually resulted in the Macleod's stores becoming Tru Value then Ace Hardware.

I'm not sure how to interpret the serial number format or who manufactured the bicycle. The bicycle itself looks early 1970s boom era. By 1975 wing nuts had largely disappeared and entry level models like this were typically using stem mounting for the shift levers in place of down tube mounting seen on your bicycle. This would be too early for the Shimano components to have date codes. However, there may be some date codes on the back of the crank arms, which may at least help narrow the year range and provide a clue on how to interpret the serial number format.

Edit: I forgot to provive a link to the gallery album https://www.bikeforums.net/g/user/545044
Also, here's a photo assist for the overall photo. In the future, please take the overall photo from ther drive side, so that the drivetrain components are visible.

Last edited by T-Mar; 09-21-21 at 07:29 AM.
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