A Penny Farthing Bicycle in New London, New Hampshire for Weathervane Wednesday

This weathervane was photographed at the Ice House museum in New London, New Hampshire

 Last month I posted a Weathervane Wednesday post about a Model T automobile weather vane from the Ice House museum.  Today I'm posting about this "Penny Farthing" weathervane I photographed also at the Ice House museum in New London.  I almost missed this one, and saw it as I was leaving the museum! 

The Ice House museum displays lots of old automobiles, fire engines, bicycles and riding toys from history.  This three dimensional weathervane of a "Penny Farthing" is very appropriate!  This type of bicycle was popular in the 1870s and 1880s.  It was also known as a high wheel or high wheeler. It became obsolete when chain-driven gears were used in bicycles. 

The funny name for this type of bicycle came from the British coins known as "penny" (one cent) and "farthing" (one quarter of a cent). Farthings were worth less, but were much bigger than pennies. They were very dangerous due to falls and the lack of shock absorption.  The new chain driven bicycles were known as "safety bicycles". 

For the truly curious:

Ice House Museum, New London, New Hampshire:  https://www.wfkicehouse.org/  

Facebook page for the Ice House Museum:    https://www.facebook.com/theicehousemuseum/  

Last month I wrote a Weathervane Wednesday post about another weather vane from this museum.  Click here to read all about this Model T automobile weather vane!   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-modified-model-t-weathervane-new.html  

Click here to see over 500 Weathervane Wednesday posts from this blog!   https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Weathervane%20Wednesday    

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To cite/link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "A Penny Farthing Bicycle in New London, New Hampshire for Weathervane Wednesday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 4, 2024, (  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2024/09/a-penny-farthing-bicycle-in-new-london.html