Dear friends,

I signed up on this forum in the hope that someone can help me. I have recently bought a house in which there were a couple of old bicycles. One of them is caught my eye, so I think that maybe I renew it but I just can not figure out who is manufacturer. Does anyone of you might recognize the brand towards photography of the front fender?IMG_9894.JPG

Very interesting. I'm not familiar with that. What country do you live in? It might help narrow the search down some.

First that comes to mind is Adler and Phoenix. It's a bit art deco so I guess 20'-30's but it might have been continued in this shape after the war. Puch and Union (the German one) have used birds and wings also, and there's use of swallows, but this one doesn't look like a swallow.

There has also been a period in German history where nationalistic symbolism was quite popular, and all kinds of nationalistic emblems appeared on the front fenders. And the Eagle (Adler in German) was and still is their national heraldry bird. The german word is Schutzblechemblem, Schutzblechfigur or Schutzblechreiter fur such an item. If it's German the letters probably refer to the location of the manufacterer. I will look if I can find some Phoenix emblems later, Phoenix was a Dutch manufacturer, pretty high end, but not very well documented on the internet.

So you might try google images with those german words, try DuckDuckGo and set location to Germany, and try German E-bay to find a simular one. Or you might show us more pictures of the bike as frame shapes were pretty country specific in those days.

I am from Croatia, so I guess it was some of the European manufacturers of bicycles. Unfortunately, now I only have this photo but I will later send a photo of the entire frame. Otherwise it is a men's bike, which is painted over, so if there was some other mark or sign now I can not see. In any case, thank you to the previous answers!

What letters can you make out? V.. G ...?

V could mean "Velo". Perhaps Velos Gitanes?

Very interesting, I await more pictures...

Yes, but the use of an eagle doesn't make much sense for a French manufacturer who calls himself Gitanes. I still think it's most likely German and the Germans have all kind of head tube plates and fender emblems which weren't put there by the factory but by local bike shops and makers. Victoria and Vaterland are also options, they had eagles on the fenders also.

Fender mascots were popular in a number of countries. They were popular in Canada during the 1950s, as aftermarket items. In Japan, they survived well into the 1960s as both manufacturer applied and aftermarket items. Most of the aftermarket versions I've seen were generic. The presence of the letters typically indicated either a manufacturer or private label for a very large shop.

I have never seen this particular mascot but I can appreciate both the velo and eagle connections. How about a French manufacturer with German heredity, like Gottfried?

If this was a German bicycle, then I would think that there would be a good probability of it having a Fichtel & Sachs hub, in which case we should at least be able to date it via the shell code.

If it's got a Swiss cranck case with a 3 speed kick back gearbox in the cranck case, it's most likely a Phoenix and that would be a great find.

V could be Vaterland, Victoria but also Verein for example if it's not fitted by the manufacterer but to show the owner is a member of a certain association. G could stand for Göricke, but also for Gesellschaft (corporation). Because of the clean styling and the fact it looks to me like an eagle, and it is found in Croatia still makes me think it's probably German. Albania has an eagle also, but not any bike industry that I know of and Albanians didn't cross borders as much.

What about polish ?

Yes, it looks like it needs a good polish!

I wonder if it could be Polish?

Found it. It is an AGB: Amandus Glaser, Berlin.

Phew ...

Now let's see the rest of that bike. AGBs apparently had 'elastic frame tubes' which made them very comfortable.

Here's some more information about the brand: AGB Super Elastic.

I'll be it's got an "elastic" ride! Nice detective work [MENTION=173992]non-fixie[/MENTION]

non-fixie this is a real discovery for me, so I thank you from my heart for this information.

At the first opportunity when I will go to my new (old) house (the house is far from the place where I live now) I will photograph the entire frame, so I will post photos.

Now I was convinced that I was not wrong when I signed up on this forum - thank you all!

Appearantly the become less elastic over time and there's a risk of the frame breaking, so be careful.

You're quite welcome. It was a pleasant surprise to discover it is such an interesting brand. It's always a pleasure when someone brings an interesting bike to the forum. I'm really looking forward to the pics.

Good job!

As I promised:

IMG_0118.jpg

IMG_0120.jpg

IMG_0121.JPG

IMG_0122.jpg

IMG_0119.JPG

Now I still need to figure out which is that accurately model of bike and if I have the proper wheel for him (I have 8 old different wheels but do not know if any belong to this bicycle)

And I also found something for my kids...children's tricycle from the period somewhere between I and II WW

IMG_0128.jpg

IMG_0129.jpg

You're probably lucky it isn't an elastic. This guy only takes it for shirt trips to get groceries because he's afraid the frame will break, the elastic part appears not to age well.

Historische Fahrräder - AGB

Yes but I'm afraid it will take a lot of time to my first run

I found a photo of another restored "Super Elastic" ... looks great

restauracao7.jpg