Christchurch Cycling Craze #4 - Pricing Cycles 1905

Click image for enlarged view Advertising poster for J B Clarkson, Palmerston North, Feilding, Levin, & Dannevirke - all the main population centres of the lower North Island - listing prices of various models of bicycle and the Centaur motorcycle in 1905. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Ok, it's not Christchurch prices and it's not 1890 prices but 1905's, but you can get the idea of prevailing prices and what a king's ransom it was to buy one of these machines a century ago. A £20.00 Centaur cycle in 1905 is the equivalent of NZ$3034.58 in 2009 prices.

Imagine the shiver of dread down the spine, the cold sweat of fear, & the feeling of being swept away by the winds of change if you had recently purchased a bicycle and the new-fangled motorcycle arrived on the scene deep-sixing your previously cutting edge, oh, so fashionable, plain bicycle into the dustbin of the previous century...

Or if you couldn't afford a bicycle perhaps you could afford the price of a ticket - at 1 shilling - in the first combined Auckland annual charity fete & art union in September 1905 with the possibility of winning the fourth prize, a lady or gent's bicycle valued at 25 guineas:

Alexander Turnbull Library

Christchurch Cycling Craze #3 - Boys & Their Bikes

Boys & their (expensive) toys, Christchurch circa 1890
Christchurch City Libraries image

These brave young fellows put to shame those of us in a later age who took a million circuits of the backyard lawn before we would countenance unassisted self-balancing travel on a now standard uniform size two wheeler...

A Rudge Safety bicycle, presumably used, advertised for sale in the Evening Post classifieds of 8 March 1890 at 12 pounds would be equivalent in value to NZ$2011.57 in 2008 dollars according to the Reserve Bank historical inflation calculator. (Our thanks to Timespanner whose post on the historical price calculator directed us to said handy dandy calculator). Clearly, not a scientific estimate of value in current prices but an indication of the expense of pursuing the cycling life in 1890.

At those prices, these young lads either delivered a heck of a lot of newspapers, robbed a bank, or, most likely, had well-heeled parents.