My replacement straps came from Ruud Mors in the Netherlands, who sells them individually.  This set is, I believe, the least expensive on his site.  (Click on “Accessories” on his website — the button’s over on the right — for more information about sizes, etc..  The website is in Dutch, German, and English; click on the appropriate flag on the home page to choose.)

I paid about 4 euros per strap.  Shipping and handling are high, of course, though not outrageously worse than the higher domestic USA charges.  However, checking around had amply demonstrated that there was no way I’d be able to get anything like this easily in the USA for anywhere close to this price. I might have been able to find one-inch-wide straps here, but at higher cost, and, in any event, they would not have been usable for the Herlag, which requires straps that are significantly narrower.

I was surprised to see that the buckles seem to be attached upside down; they have a very slight curve which curls up, rather than around, the circle formed by the buckled belt.  The curve is so slight that it doesn’t interfere with function, and it doesn’t matter for appearances in this case, as they are not visible when the pram is in use.  The tip on one strap was cut asymmetrically:  As two of the straps needed to be trimmed in length to fit, that, too, wasn’t the problem it might have been. I suspect that these issues are at least partly due to the low cost; I’m assuming that the specifications and quality control for more expensive ones would be correspondingly higher.

Ruud is extremely helpful, and very quick with email responses; he assured me that his straps would fit my Herlag perfectly (as they did!), and he sent them out very quickly. I wouldn’t hesitate to do business with him again, as he is responsive in a way one hardly sees any more, but I’d definitely be very specific with questions if, in the future,  I were buying straps that would show, especially since trans-Atlantic exchanges are not necessarily a reasonable way to resolve replacement issues.

Here’s the underside of the Herlag, after I installed the straps. (The white you see underneath has nothing to do with the Herlag; it’s cardboard to protect both pram and floor from scratches and dings.)

Everyone who loves old prams is used to seeing spring connectors at the four “corners” near the wheels, but observant souls will have noticed that the old high coach prams also have a third set, which goes from the underside of the pram bed to the lower frame on the chassis — just like this little guy.

The third set is to prevent lateral sway.  They are the straps that seem to be lying horizontally, across the bottom of the Herlag.  (They haven’t been trimmed yet, which is why they’re resting like that; the loop between the body and chassis is far too big.)

Here’s a close up of the strap installation.  I’ve turned the Herlag over, below, but still haven’t trimmed the sway strap, which you can see in the background.  Note that the strap next to the wheel is attached to a post that is, in turn, bolted onto the chassis.  Don’t make the mistake of accidentally attaching the strap to the axle, which is just under the post.

If you’re restoring a carriage like this one, or a true pram, you might think that you should make the center set of straps as tight as possible.  Nothing could be more wrong!  Make sure to attach them so that there is a little “give” between the chassis and the body.  You want the straps loose enough to allow a spring to the ride, but snug enough so that the pram will not move freely from side to side.

Once the straps are installed, you’ll need to check that your pram is level all around, and that you’ve got spring and sway adjusted just right.  Lots of modern prams and pushchairs are a joy to push, but nothing can match the roll of vintage carriages with leather “springs”.  Oh-la-la!

Related:  Long To See An Herlag?

I acquired this pushchair but have no idea of the manufacturer or date it is  as it has no identifying marks at all. I have looked on the internet but have not found anything that looks like it. Thought you may have some idea it is very unusual having only two wheels and canvas seat with leather straps.

Here’s the vehicle in question:

This is a sulky — a small, light cart meant to transport a child.  Sulkies have been around, in some form or another, since the early 1900s.  This one, the simplest style possible, is probably from the 40s, but that’s only an educated guess, not an actual fact.  Although it is possible to push it, it was probably meant to be pulled backwards, once the stand was folded up.

This one is a very trimmed-down version, rather striking in its minimalism, with a beautiful curve below the seat.

Sulkies were one of a number of variations on the theme of “light folder” in the 1940s and 1950s.  Here’s an ad from 1950:

The text reads:

Give baby a smooth ride in this sophisticated sulky.  The adjustable top protects against wind and sun.  Folds easily to take baby in your car.

Along with the full seat and hood, this sulky has two tiny rear wheels, allowing it to be pulled at quite an angle, but preventing disaster if the angle gets too acute.  Sulkies typically didn’t have brakes; preventing that kind of disaster was strictly the obligation of whoever held the handle.  The ad also notes that folders with brakes begin at more than twice this price.

Ours, at The Pram Museum, is very similar to the sulky in this ad.  The seat and hood are a light weight denim — yes, just like modern (non-stretch) denim.  Most cloth strollers and prams were well-coated to make them waterproof, but this is plain cotton, as the ad notes, providing protection only against “wind and sun”.  This wouldn’t be a rainy day vehicle.

Note the black, swooping, fenders.  They are pressed metal, and thus rather cheaply made, but a touch of fashionable styling.

If Sandra’s is the trimmest and the sleekest of the mid-century sulkies, ours is the most bloated:  It really is smaller and more portable than most of the folding strollers of the era, but that advantage might have been erased by the necessity of pulling, rather than pushing, it.

It really was a great solution for quick trips, or, as originally intended, for throwing into the overhead bin on an airplane. However, neither this version, nor the millions of super-cheap, super-flimsy ones that followed in its wake provided anything other than a cramped, bone-jarring ride.

Maclaren eventually developed more baby-friendly models, and other manufacturers jumped on the band wagon. I got used to the idea, and even used an Italian version — this Perego Bye-Bye — for The Pram Museum Heir’s portable buggy:

Maclaren’s neatly engineered buggy was the final blow for old-style mass-marketed prams and strollers, though, and I’ve never really forgiven him. Nonetheless, thousands (millions?) of New Yorkers will tell you that there’s nothing better for the subways of their fair city than the descendants of that first little mesh pushchair.

The one above is from 1966, and in MOMA’s permanent collection. Yes, we’re jealous. We don’t have one at The Pram Museum, and we want one!

You can’t get a really good idea of scale here, but that’s a large-ish entryway, and it’s completely obstructed by the stroller.

These strollers are wonderfully clever, and can be used in one-, two-, three-, or four-seat configurations, as well as with pram-bed variations.  More about those later.  In the meantime, here’s what the 1987/1988 model looked like with siblings who are  just over one-year-old:

(The real little faces are obscured, because we generally don’t show babies’ faces on Pram Watch.)

This is an incredibly bulky, cumbersome stroller — at least once all four seats are installed.  Inglesina no longer sells the quad version, probably because pushing it loaded with three-year-olds would require massive doses of illegal steroids.  And loading it into a car or van?  You’d have to be nuts to try it.

Which isn’t going to prevent me from doing that at least once, because, well, that’s what I do.   Fortunately, I’ve got some helpful muscle hanging around.  Two of us ought to be able to wrangle a fully-configured quad in and out of a truck, don’t you think?

I doubt many people tried to used the body of a full-sized pram in this way, but for those nostalgic for the classic British pram, little transporters of this kind cropped up.  They combined a pram-like body with a small, foldable frame.  Though not exactly “safe” in the way safety is understood in 2009 terms, a small pram like this gave baby a comfortable place to sleep in the car, and parents the convenience of wheels at their destination.

This particular model is made by Perego and was purchased for its former owner’s child in the summer of 1979.  That charming checked lining was typical of some Perego models during the 1970s, and the lace trim is on every Perego carriage I’ve seen from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.

The backrest is folded up in this picture, and that’s the storm apron folded to the left.  The lace may need some careful bleaching, but that’s easy to so, since it snaps off the canopy for cleaning. Though the bed  is smaller than in the usual Perego prams, it still has a full hood, an apron, and an adjustable back so that an alert baby can watch the world go by.

The design of the frame owes a lot to Owen Maclaren’s buggy, and is shared by Perego’s own Bye-Bye and other strollers that  folded umbrella-style.  The cot can face either forward or back, although with babies as young as those who would ride in it, it would be most usual to have the infant facing whoever was pushing.

The bar above lends a little extra stability to the frame; pulling up on the black knob either folds or unfolds the frame, and locks the frame  in place when it’s open.  One missing feature is a lock to hold the frame closed once it’s folded; that’s a bit of a pain if you’re taking the pram on a train or bus, for example, instead of just tucking it into a car trunk.  That wide black strap you see under the upper set of wheels in the picture below is a  hook-and-loop strap I always carry with me when picking up a pram. Without it, standing the folded frame on end would be a little perilous.

As you can see, though, this little cart breaks down very nicely for the train (though I admit I was careful to travel during non-peak hours).  Fabric handles on the sides  make it easy to move the cot, but, it should also be noted, also made it possible to dump the baby out of the cot  if you weren’t careful.

Note that the tires are black; white tires (and larger ones) were more typical of luxury models.  Sleekness is the theme for this little pram, rather than elegance, though we like to think it offers a  bit of each quality.  The spokes are the real, thing, too, and a feature that was rapidly disappearing from smaller prams and strollers.

The brakes aren’t the old friction-fit type; instead the brake lever makes a positive lock into ribs attached to the hub of the wheel; that style is much easier on tires, and a bit more reliable than the friction-fit style.  None of the wheels swivel, which  means that turns require lifting one set of wheels slightly, and that the turning radius was a little larger than it would have been otherwise.  Though the frame design is rather spare, this transporter has excellent springs on two wheels, which smooth out the ride quite a bit.

Acquiring this pram was a great adventure, and it was an extra bonus to learn some of its history.  It’s always wonderful when the previous owner knows a lot about his or her pram; though his daughter is well into adulthood now, the gentleman we met put it through its paces perfectly, having clearly not forgotten a single feature!

Ten years ago when The Pram Museum was born on April 8, 1999, we were the first (and only) pram museum on the Internet. Come to think of it, we are still the only formal pram museum in cyberspace.

If we were having a party, we’d want a cake just like this beautiful one from Gateaux Campagna in New Jersey. Instead, though, we’re planning to make this year the one when The Pram Museum finally gets a long overdue overhaul. We’ve got almost as many prams and strollers to add to the website as are already online.

So no party for us. Not yet, at least. First, we need to get cracking; there’s work to be done!

In the meantime, do stop by and visit the Museum — and do take a look at the websites listed under “Collections” on the right side bar just to the right of this page. We may still be the only formal museum of its kind, but there are some brilliant collections out there, just awaiting your viewing pleasure.