I have been in search of a vintage bike to add to the fleet and ran across a bit of a mystery bike and wanted to share my findings. The bike is the Marquis, a nice vintage looking bike with fenders and a 3-speed hub like you’d expect on many old bikes. So, it looked good in the pictures, but I couldn’t find out anything bout a Marquis bike.
Eventually I got the seller to send me some more pictures and one had a Coast to Coast sticker on it. Well, that was new to me, so I did more research and found out it was a hardware store that private labeled bicycles, I assume like Sears did. Doing a little history on Coast to Coast I found out they were started in like 1928 and ended in 1997, so there was room for it being a pretty vintage bike. Coast King is a name often associated with their bikes, I think it was a model like the Marquis. I couldn’t find any info suggesting they ever had any particularly good bikes made for them. From what I read it seems that early ones were made by Ross bicycle and then newer by Huffy.
I figured out the hub was a Shimano and based on which one it was likely late 70s to early 80s. I also found out that it had a code starting with HC on the frame which most likely means it was made by Huffy. So, after all my intense research I have concluded that this Marquis is most likely a bike made in the 80s by Huffy and passed on the purchase. I just wanted to share this info for anyone else who may run into a Marquis or wonder what a Coast to Coast brand bicycle is as it was new to me. Please comment if you know more or if something should be corrected.
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