kwginco

I picked up a bike at a barn sale which appears to be pre-war (late 30's-early 40's) but it has no markings to help me determine the manufacturer or date of manufacture. It was in fairly good shape, everything moving freely no rust. I did find a serial # on the under the BB: W17 (O or U)627. It has a skip tooth sproket, New Departure Type D rear hub and leather Mesinger saddle. Any help identifying and dating this bike would be appreciated. I have attached some photos.

Mos6502

It's a Columbia Victory Bike from the WWII era. The hub and various other pieces are painted black due to difficulty of getting chrome during the war. For some reason the lady's frames are much more common than the men's frames from this era. Neat bit of history! Originally these would have had wooden pedal blocks too due to rubber rationing.

zukahn1 

Great info I was wondering about the lack of chrome it jusn't didn't seem right for this bike.

kwginco

Thanks for the quick reply and info. Do you know of any any references available to lookup the Serial Number? I found a few Columbia sites but haven't seen much information pertaining to this particular model. I realize that the ladies frame takes away from it's value but is there a market for this model given it's condition? Thanks again!

Mos6502

The W serial would indicate a 1944 model.

To be honest there's not really much interest in these. They're extremely basic and simple bikes, and because Columbia was essentially the only company allowed to produce bikes during WWII era, they're also the most common from this era.

If you check out this page: https://www.vintagecolumbiabikes.com/id83.html they have pictures of a men's and lady's wartime bike.

As for value, the big problem is really finding somebody who's interested not only in the wartime model but a lady's version, so I honestly cannot give an estimate of any use. I've seen the men's version sell for between $60 and $120 in rough to excellent conditions though. I had a pre-war loop frame columbia lightweight that I paid $40 for in pretty rough condition, but the loop frame is generally more sought after than the straight bar frame of the war time version. So it's pretty hard say really.

Because of the odd sized tires, skip tooth chain, and the rare components (the black New Departure hubs were only made during part of WWII) it's not really a "user" bike like a postwar model would be, so it's really only sellable to collectors.

zenith

This is a neat bike thanks to Mos for the infos on it.