Velocipede Tricycle, ca. 1870
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GUEST:
This tricycle was in a house that my parents bought in 1958. The house was built around 1900, and there was a wraparound porch, and one of my brothers was hiding his tricycle from the other.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
And he went all the way under the porch and found this under the porch.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm. Did they ever ride this tricycle?
GUEST:
They rode it quite a bit.
APPRAISER:
This isn't your typical tricycle. This is what is called a velocipede. Sometimes they had two wheels like a bicycle, three wheels like this tricycle, or more. You could have four-wheeled carts. How old do you think this is?
GUEST:
1890 or so?
APPRAISER:
This probably dates from 1860 to 1880.
GUEST:
Oh.
APRAISER: In the 1850s and 1860s, there was an explosion of bicycle designs. They were having, uh, ones with giant wheels, small wheels, chain drives, pedal drives. This is just a really neat design for a tricycle, and it is one of the few that has remained pretty much unchanged for the last 150 years. This one is in very, very good condition. Um, it does have a little bit of paint loss, but you can still see remnants of the original...
GUEST:
Yeah, I think it was red...
APPRAISER:
...pinstriping and red paint. This seat-- so, nowadays, they would make it out of a bent piece of wood or leather. This is actually one solid piece of wood that's just been carved, and you can still see, on the top, also, a little bit of the original paint, a little bit of wear from, you know, your little tushes riding on it.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Somebody's...
GUEST:
It looks like somebody's little bottom...
APPRAISER:
Yeah!
GUEST:
...wore that off.
APPRAISER:
Exactly.
GUEST:
(laughing)
APPRAISER:
The pedal has been replaced.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
But it's almost identical.
GUEST:
That's the original on that side.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, it is the same size and probably the same type of wood as the original. You've had a few washers put in, a few bolts replaced. But overall, this thing is in very good, great decorative condition. Most likely made in America. Sometimes they'd have paper labels of the distributor, sometimes of the maker, but those come off pretty quickly with just a little bit of play.
GUEST:
It will-- kids, absolutely.
APPRAISER:
Exactly. The antique bicycle market and restoration market has blown up over the last five years. There are people who build larger, adult-sized version of these to ride around. I would put an auction estimate on this of $1,500 to $2,000 in this condition.
GUEST:
Oh, good! Great.
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