Talk:Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle

Merge proposal: Henderson Motorcycle into this.

Since this article is now about both Excelsior-Henderson companies, it is proposed that Henderson Motorcycle be merged into this article, or at least that the part of the Henderson Motorcycle article dealing with Henderson after the buyout be moved from that article to this one. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 18:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Two Different Companies

This article refers to an "original Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle company", but does not cite any references. The "original company" was actually Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co.

Schultz, Richard Henry, "Hendersons, Those Elegant Machines, The Complete History of Henderson Motorcycles (1911-1931)", Pine Hill Press, 1994, ISBN 0-9642688-0-9 provides copies of original documents related to the sale of Henderson Motorcycle Company to the Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co. [ampersand and abbreviations in originals] in late 1917.

Documents on the letterhead of the Henderson Motorcycle Company are typically signed by "T.W. Henderson". Documents on the letterhead of the Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co. are typically signed by "Ignaz Schwinn".

After the sale, Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co.'s letterhead included "Excelsior and Henderson Motorcycles", but the company's name did not change.

Schultz provides copies of advertising and promotional material through 1929. All these materials, whether for Excelsior motorcycles, Henderson motorcycles, or sometimes both, clearly identify the company as "Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co." (sometimes the word Company is spelled out).

Copies of these documents are available on request.

An example of a 1929 advertising document may be found at: http://hendersonkj.com/ffo/documents/brochures/1929Side1.jpg This brochure shows both a Henderson and an Excelsior (Super X) model, but prominently shows "Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co."

An example of a 1930 advertising document may be found at: http://hendersonkj.com/ffo/documents/brochures/1930Side2.jpg Again, "Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co."

Thus there is a considerable body of evidence that the company headed by Ignaz Schwinn from 1912-1931 was named Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co.

Proposed Actions

1. The article "Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle" should be corrected by removing the text related to "two companies", "original Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle company", etc. as these are unsupported.

2. The article "Henderson Motorcycle" should remain a separate article.

David M. Hennessey (talk) 15:08, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Item 1 done.

Is there any particular reason why you did not include the creation of an Excelsior Motor Manufacturing & Supply Company article among your proposed actions? Whether you wanted this done or not, it has been done.

Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 20:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Sam,

I was thinking about this - all these Excelsior companies get very confusing. To make matters even worse, the modern E-H company called their bike a "Super X" just like the old EMM&S model from 1925-1931.

One way of looking at it would be the "marques" rather than "companies", since these marques continued through various corporate ownerships.

Excelsior (USA) motorcycle

Excelsior Supply Company models from 1905-1912

EMM&S Company - models 1912-1931 (merge existing Excelsior Super-X article into this??)

Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle

Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle Manufacturing Company - only one model, the Super-X

Henderson motorcycle

Henderson Motorcycle Company - models 1911-1918

EMM&S Company models - 1918-1931

The E-H and Henderson motorcycle articles are already structured this way, although the text of E-H is pretty sparse.

The only problem is that there are very few extant 1905-1924 Excelsior motorcycles, and hence very few subject matter experts. The External Link "History of..." under Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle provides a lot of info about the ancient history of Excelsior, but I don't know where to find any additional info to corroborate.

I'm not sure we need the "company" pages. If we do go this route, then the "company" pages are short stubs pointing to the "marque" pages.

Excelsior Supply Company

pointer to Excelsior (USA) motorcycle

Excelsior Motor Mfg. & Supply Co.

pointer to Excelsior (USA) motorcycle

pointer to Henderson motorcycle

Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle Manufacturing Company

pointer to Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle

Henderson Motorcycle Company

pointer to Henderson motorcycle

What are your thoughts?

--- A couple of notes:
1. I think Excelsior Supply Company was also in Chicago, but not sure. I don't know if there's much info available about this company. Apparently, they made bicycles before motorcycles.
2. Excelsior-Henderson motorcycle article - I believe the correct company name is Excelsior-Henderson Motorcycle Manufacturing Company

David M. Hennessey (talk) 16:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Want to discuss this off-line? Check my user page for contact info.

David M. Hennessey (talk) 23:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Since this has mostly to do with the 1907-1931 Excelsior motorcycles, this might best be discussed at the talk page for the article currently about those, which is Talk:Excelsior Motor Manufacturing & Supply Company Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 16:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Major Edit

The article has had issues listed for over two years. I conducted a major edit of the article, which only had 1 external source previously. I added additional external sources to verify some of the information. I also removed extraneous information, such as biographical detail of one of the co-CEO's, names of the corporate VPs, information on the former Exelsior-Henderson company. Finally I removed what appeared to be original information (such as listing of specific VIN numbers) that appeared to be original research and did not seem appropriate for an encyclopedic article. Please contact me on my talk page to work through these edits if they are objectionable.Macboots (talk) 03:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)