Re: [CR]Hermes Bicycle

(Example: Production Builders:Tonard)

From: "Olof Stroh" <olof.stroh@hem.utfors.se>
To: "nath" <ferness261@voyager.net>, "Art Smith" <ahsmith49@home.com>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
References: <CATFOOD0WFJyXde2kqk0000150f@catfood.nt.phred.org> <000501c19323$70883e40$b47c0918@phnx3.az.home.com> <000801c19396$36632810$4427cfa9@islandia>
Subject: Re: [CR]Hermes Bicycle
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 22:25:24 +0100


Hermes is swedish indeed, it was the "first" mark of Nymans Verkstäder in Uppsala (800 m from my home) before WWII. After the war it had to part that honour with Crescent, acq. by Nymans 1931. It ceased - as far as I understand - in 1965 when all bicycle fabrication of the Monark-Crescent company moved from Uppsala to Varberg on the west coast.

I have in front of me a nice photograph from 1951 with swedish prime minister Tage Erlander on his 50th anniversary having recieved an exact copy of the bike on ebay as a present from the workers union in Uppsala.

The dynohub is an in-house constructionfrom 1949 named Nymodyn.

My son has a copy of the bike without dynohub - that was an extra option - and likes it very much.

My father - who grew up in Uppsala - had a red racing bike named Mercurius (latin version of Hermes) from the 1930´s made by Hermes esp. for the Uppsala bike club. Unfortunately he had the bad taste to give it away when we moved in 1957 and I - being 14 - didn´t understand better.

Olof Stroh
Uppsala Sweden