Thomas Smith & Sons of Saltley, ca. 1890

This beautiful bicycle shows the search of manufacturers for the perfect bicycle frame. It was built approximately 1890-1891 and only two years later experiments like this belonged to the past: everyone built the diamond frame with saddle tube, like we still know it. Look at the interesting mount of the bracket, which was also used to adjust the chain tension.

Thomas Smith and Sons of Saltley had been established in 1848 in Birmingham. In the periode 1880-1886 they built a range of ordinaries, using different brand names. The address of the factory was Saltley Mill, Adderley Road, Birmingham, Warwickshire. They also supplied parts for bicycles, railway wrenches and tools, until the 1970's.

This bike has hubs made by Thomas Smith, so we attribute it to this maker. But it could have been built by another firm, who used only the Thomas Smith hubs. This happened a lot, most firms delivered parts when a smaller producer asked for it.

I got the pictures with permission from www.veliciousbicycles.com. Thanks Max.