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Test your investigative skills!
A metal “PBC” badge appears on our website (Uniform – “An original metal cap badge is on display at The National Cycle Collection at Llandrindod Wells.”). A knowledgeable person (non-member) believes this to be the “Plymouth Bicycle Club”, and quotes sketches for both club’s badges in the 1882 edition of “Wheel World”. This challenge has not, at this time, been accepted. Here is Joseph Smiggers’ reasoning for the badge being of the “Pickwick Bicycle Club”: “Clearly, both clubs have adopted the classic writing style of the period and are very similar indeed. The biggest question I am left with is the accuracy of these sketches because if you compare the sketch for the Pickwick with the picture of the old cloth badge, they are distinctly different. The letter C in the sketch has an extra cursive loop in the lower part of the “C”, whilst the cloth badge has this extra loop in the top half of the “C”. Equally, the Plymouth has an extra cursive loop in the lower half of the “C”, whilst our metal badge has this in both the top and bottom of the “C”. The other reason that I am not convinced that it is the Plymouth is because the Plymouth does not have the wheat-sheaf ties (shown on the Pickwick sketch and the cloth badge) that have become stylised floral form on the metal badge. I think the jury is out on this one until we can find more decisive evidence that it is not the Pickwick Bicycle Club badge. No doubt our south-coast friends can rise to the challenge!”
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