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June, 2017 The Antique Shoppe Page 21
Ritter Road-Skates

Road over the competition

By Larry LeMasters, LeMasters’ Antique News Service

Centuries before inline skating became a popular sport, John Joseph Merlin, circa 1760, designed skates with single- to many-rowed
devices on the bottoms. Louis Legrange of France designed the world’s first inline skates in 1849 for an opera that needed an actor to
appear to be ice-skating on ice. Rollerblade offered the first commercially available inline skate in 1987. However, for ingenious design
and skating power, the skate most collectors want is Ritter Road-skates.
Designed by a foreman of D. Napier & Son, a Mr. Ritter, circa 1895, Ritter Road-skates were named after their designer and sold by the
Road Skate Company of Oxford Street, London, England. These skates had two comparatively large wheels, front and back, on each skate.
By the 1890s, skating, as a craze, was dying out. Ritter Road-skates were designed so that skaters could skate over rough, cobblestone
streets and graded roads. As a sport, road skating appealed primarily to men.
Ritter Road-skates were novelty items that resembled miniature bicycles. Each skate weighed 40 pounds, so a pair of skates weighed
80 pounds, and was secured to the boot by clips. The wheels ran on ball bearings, and the braking system was comprised of a pull cord,
which followed the support struts up to the skater’s knee and applied a pinching motion to the rear wheel.
Today, collectors not only
seek authentic Ritter Road-
skates, but they also collect
Ritter advertisements and
the company pamphlet
“Road Skating” that was
issued by Road Skate
Company, free of charge,
and claimed bragging
rights that it offered “every
information on the subject”
of road skating.
Each skate carries Ritter’s
patent stamp, and the
skates are also marked
“right” and “left” so a
skater knew which foot to
put the skates on.

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