Help riding this tricycle

[khameleon_koatings]

greetings folks...

name is matthew from vermont...i do powder coating and saw this at buddies shop and had to have it...it is slated for a full restoration by myself...but what info might any of you veterans know about it...?
...

like where do i look for the serial, where might i learn make model...
the badge on neck reads huffy huffman...but i google that and only see regular bicycles- no tricycles.

any help is greatly and thanked for in advance...!

pls thx
matthew

[cny-man]

You've already ID'd it - Huffy Huffman adult trike. What else did you want to know? I don't know what would be important about the serial number, as it's not particularly valuable. You're not going to find much info on this, any more than you'd find info on a standard Huffy from the same period.

[khameleon_koatings]

hmmm, i see... well i was asking b/c i googled huffy huffman, and all i got were bicycles- geese didnt think to put in huffman trike...didnt know if maybe it was a huffman T3, or AT3 (trike, 3rd edition/series, adult trike #3), etc etc ... trying now on google.

but id kinda like to know stuff like maybe where to get/find oem parts for it, what colors did they originally come in, etc etc - wanting todo a restoration on it with our powder coating process(es), but in a color that is original.

thanks
matthew

---

well tried searching huffman trike- got nothing that is the same as mine...came close with the 68 schwin i saw/found...but no huffman trikes...

---

if blasted and restored with powder coating- realizing of course its not valuable...but what might it be be worth once fully restored... any idea/guess from experience/knowledge?

[cny-man]

Nobody is going to know if it's an original color, but if you can find pics of other bikes from the same period you can probably go with that. That could have been made over a very wide range of decades, but unlikely before the late 60's. If you can identify the hub it may give you some idea of the time period.

[1FJEF]

You can go to TricycleFetish.com. On the left is a huffy link. They explain how Horace Huffman got things going in the early 1900s. You might contact them & see if there is reference/patent data or some early catalogs. Your head badge may have appeared on some of the trikes marketed & marked on the down tube under a different name. The guy had almost a third of the market at one time.
I'm afraid that you may not be able to sell it for close to what it would cost to restore.
The site has a section for values.

[khameleon_koatings]

hmm interesting- so not worth doing the restore...even if i do it myself (blast, powder coat)- still tons of work tho- i see/know that- but thought for sure itd be worth restoring...?!

not seeing the values section of their site- or were you referring to this site BT.com...?

[1FJEF]

It would be fun, I doubt it would be worth it money wise. The red banner on the page takes you to the tricycle blog. You can ask there, or contact admin there.

[nfmisso]

there is also a chance that someone converted it from a bicycle to a tricycle.

Bike restoring is a black hole hobby, it very very rarely pays monetarily. But it is fun .

[TomC]

(02-06-2014, 12:20 AM)khameleon_koatings Wrote:  hmm interesting- so not worth doing the restore...even if i do it myself (blast, powder coat)- still tons of work tho- i see/know that- but thought for sure itd be worth restoring...?!

not seeing the values section of their site- or were you referring to this site BT.com...?

Almost everything in the world is "collectable" and somewhere there probably is someone who collects whatever. The problem with collectable items that never became mainstream (like coins or stamps), the number of collectors is small and they are widely scattered. There might be someone somewhere who collects adult trikes or who collects Huffy cycles, but finding that person would be more luck than anything else. Unfortunately Huffy made millions of bikes and thousands of adult trikes, so they aren't all that rare -- even though most have been scrapped long ago. Finally, "restored" still isn't original, which further limits the market among avid collectors.

Recreating a trike that looks original might be doable, and you might be able to break even if you don't count your time as being a cost, but you aren't likely to make much profit (if any).

Depending on your interests, it might be an interesting project to get it looking good and ready to ride - for yourself or for someone else. If the powder coating business is your own, you might consider putting the business name on the trike instead of going for an original appearance - if could be cute advertising.

Trikes are also good candidates for eBike conversion -- as one to ride, not as a "collectable"