dfw7849

I have an antique 1950 Kofu "Wind" bicycle that I have owned since I was 10 years old in 1957. I am looking for parts for my bike but would also be interested in purchasing a whole bike as well. See attached flier which shows what my bike looked like when new. Also recent pictures of my bike before and after I did an amateur restoration on it . Since these picture were taken I have added red tires which is what the bike had originally. my email is donald.weston@cox.net

Londonsworld 

Thats a cool bike.

dfw7849

Thanks, I am enjoying looking at the websites in Japan that sell all kinds of antiques for sale including bikes. So far no luck but I am hopeful something will eventually turn up. The sites list many old Japanese bikes for sale very similar to mine.

CliffordK

Did you keep all of the original parts when you did your rebuild? How much are you willing to spend?

You may be able to restore many of the parts including rechroming or nickel plating the rims and various brake parts. For at least newer bikes, many people use new spokes and nipples.

Polishing aluminum bits?

Many bike companies simply made the frames, and all other parts were sourced from different manufacturers. So you would need to sleuth out who made what. So, rather than searching for a "Wind" hub, you'd be searching for whatever company actually made the hubs (which hopefully would be easier to find).

Restorations always bump up on the questions of keeping some "patina" from years of life/use vs restoring to "new" vs upgrading.

dfw7849

Thanks for the good advise. I am not really interested in "restoring" my bike. I wish to keep the original "patina" as much as possible. To do otherwise would make it into something that is not what I remember. It was a used bike when I got in the late 1950s and already had a bent frame. But it was complete until I removed and threw away the fenders, chain guard, and 3-speed controller. So what I really hope to do is find these three missing items at a minimum. Any additional correct accessories, as shown in the magazine advertisement for my bike would be great even though my bike did not come with them. So, having said that, I have no way of determining where the Kofu Bicycle Company would have purchased the items that they then put on their frames and shipped to the US for sale. I think my best hope lies in finding a complete Kofu bike that is the same as mine and then transferring the parts from that bike to mine. There are other Japanese manufactures, Marukin, Maruka and Maruishi Shokai that advertised bikes for export which look almost identical to mine with minor differences like painted fenders instead of chromed like on mine. Perhaps I will find a bike made by one of them which has the same accessories as mine but a different manufactures frame. Once purchased I may or may not have those parts restored. It will depend on their condition and if not too rough, I would have no problem just transferring them to my bike, so that is basically the same bike as I remember it being when first got it over 60 years ago. That is to say, aused bike in good, but not new, condition. I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone else but that is my goal. My bike originally came with red tires which I have been able to locate but I don't know if it originally had red tires or not when new several years before I got it. Still since it came with red tires when I got it, that is what I want to use regardless of that was originally on the bike when new.

CliffordK

Schwinn used a "Mesinger bicycle seat" which is similar to yours. Often marked with an "S", but perhaps not always.

Do you still have the original rear hub?

Sturmey Archer made most of the Raleigh hubs, and a few other brands, and had a similar thumb shifter to what your photo shows. I think there were other companies with internal gear hubs in the 20's, but I'm not finding the. Both Shimano and Sachs also were making early internal gear hubs.

But, at least in the West, Sturmey Archer was very dominant in the market.