Behind the badge

You can't always tell what kind of scooter you've found just by looking at the badge. Companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward have been selling scooters for many years, but I don't think they ever made one.

Sears puts names like Allstate on scooters made by other companies and sells them as if they were their own. They do this with almost everything they sell. I have an Allstate scooter that was made by Cushman. Puch, Vespa, and other European companies also supplied Sears with machines to be sold as Allstates. The Vespa version was the Allstate Cruisaire. One Allstate was a car made by Kaiser. Kaiser dealers sold them as the Henry J.

The Allstate name was used on several Cushman scooters. In the mid 50's, the Allstate Deluxe 811.40 was sold alongside the Allstate 811.30 which was an economy model with 3 horsepower, instead of the 4 horsepower as found in the DeLuxe.

The Allstate DeLuxe is sometimes identified as a Cushman 60-series Pacemaker with different sheet metal, but this is incorrect. It is a Cushman Highlander underneath it's Art Decco skin.
The Pacemaker had springs in the back, but the Allstate didn't and neither did the Highlander. None of the Allstate Cushmans had the two-speed transmission that was available on some Cushman models.

Beginning in 1957, Sears sold a rebadged model 722 Pacemaker, calling it a Jetsweep. Beginning with the 722, Pacemakers no longer had springs in the back.

Wards has always done the same. I have a small motorcycle called a Ward's Riverside that is a re-badgedBenelli from Italy. The Riverside name also was used on Japanese Mitsubishi scooters that were also sold as Silver Pigeons. I can't confire this, but I believe Wards also sold Italian Lambrettas with their own brand.

Even Cushman got into the act, selling a Vespa that was rebadged as a Cushman.
Howard