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Vintage Toronto Ads: Don’t Condemn a Bicycle You Haven’t Test-Driven
Further proof of the modesty employed in late 19th century advertising.
Call this a prequel to last week’s featured ad, as Welland Vale was one of the bicycle manufacturers whose line was amalgamated into CCM later on in the year this was published. Originally a manufacturer of wagon wheels when the company started in the 1860s, Welland Vale also produced hand tools and farm implements. After divesting its bicycle line and the wagon wheel market dried up with the rise of automated transportation, Welland Vale moved into the automotive rubber-coated fabric business, evolving into Cambridge-based Canadian General-Tower Ltd.
Source: The Toronto Evening Star, May 13, 1899