Backpedaling

What a great design for a bicycle-shipping crate! I’m pretty sure that it can also double as a caddy for enormous slices of toast or as the armature of a hoop-skirt.

The Victorian-era crate (with bicycle) was sold recently at the final auction of items from the now shuttered Pedaling History Museum. It’s yet another sad story of historic and cultural preservation gone awry in Buffalo, NY.

Lots of cyclenalia(?) to ogle at the Copake Auctions site.

Shawmut racing safety bicycle new in crate (c. 1913). Never uncrated. “New old stock,” as they say.

Some modern “crates.”

Bicycle stand, 1896

Rex bicycle, c.1898

Quintuple five man bicycle, signed "Francisco Cuevas" on frame.

Rollfast ski bike, DP Harris Co. NY.

Identified simply as "Bicycle Photograph."

What will they think of next?

Stocking Hosiery

A hosiery display I saw in Berlin employed a very clever system to encourage the proper replacement of removed packages, to the shelf. The bottom portion of the package image is repeated on the shelf slot where it belongs. Easy, right? Just match up the pix, and that package of panty hose, knee-highs, etc. will end up right where it is supposed to be (see below). Unless, for some reason, that doesn’t happen (above). The display then becomes one of those mix-and-match flipbooks. Results can be anything from hilarious to headache-inducing.


The display, when all goes according to plan.


How long till I get used to these bifocals?


It only took a slight misalignment to give the illusion
of a broken ankle.


And those ink runs had better be perfect too.


Here’s another brand that tried, just as unsuccessfully, the same “clever” approach.