Staff photo by Dean Shalhoup The logo panel on the rear fender of the vintage Phillips bicycle is faded but readable; it was produced by the Birmingham, England manufacturer around 1925.

True to their mantra, “We will take nearly any bicycle, bike parts and bike accessories,” Don Pare and John Burkitt one day last week led me into a big room with a high ceiling and giant windows and gestured toward a rather curious-looking bike with an unusually shiny sprocket propped up against a small chair.

“They didn’t come with kickstands back then,” Burkitt noted, something a particular visitor suddenly realized when he tried to move it slightly for photo purposes and nearly dumped it onto the floor.

We caught it, thankfully, but even if it did hit the floor, I bet the floor would have gotten the worst of it. This thing, as were a lot of things built nearly 100 years ago, is solid, heavy and, obviously, built to last.

Bike historians and even some enthusiasts will recognize the name Phillips, a popular English bicycle manufacturer that began building various models of bikes around the turn of the 20th century.

Staff photo by Dean Shalhoup Don Pare, left, and John Burkitt, co-founders of Gate City Bike Coop, show the c. 1925 Phillips bicycle that was donated recently to the coop.

That would explain the name “Birmingham” on a sticker affixed to this bike’s rear fender, but not the name “Framingham,” which is on a smaller sticker on the front fork.

Its logo, faded but legible, is a lying-down lion, and its trademark, “Renowned the World Over,” is arched over the lion.

It’s a 3-speed, and from what Pare and Burkitt can tell from their research, a 1925 model. I found doing a little research myself that Phillips was selling quite a few models around that time, having turned its attention from building bikes for military use during the war to “pleasure cycles” for all ages as the more prosperous 1920s set in.

According to the late Sheldon Brown, a Newton, Mass. bike shop owner and renowned technical expert, author and historian until his 2008 death, Phillips was the second-largest British bike maker until 1960, when it merged with England’s other giant, Raleigh.

Brown, in an online bicycle forum some years ago, described Raleigh-made Phillips models as “near the bottom of the quality range,” but also noted that “Birmingham Phillipses often featured a chainwheel with the word ‘Phillips’ prominently featured in the cutouts.”

Staff photo by Dean Shalhoup The name "Phillips" is part of the shiny steel sprocket, or chainwheel, on the vintage bicycle donated recently to the Gate City Bike Coop.

Indeed, that shiny sprocket (or chainwheel, as Brown called it) that I mentioned earlier is exactly as Brown described.

Its braking system is a rather curious setup: Both wheels have brakes, but rather than cables, they are controlled by steel rods. The front brake is simple – a straight shot down from the brake lever.

But to reach the rear wheel, someone had to design a clever network of rods – which someone did, and did it well enough that it still works quite well today.

So how did this British relic find its way to Nashua?

We’re not sure when, or how, it made the first leg of the trip to America, or how many places it visited before landing here.

But we do know how it got to the Gate City Bike Coop – thanks to an elderly woman who thought to call Pare and Burkitt one day.

“She told us she had ‘this bike in my garage,’ and it hadn’t been used in 25-plus years,” Pare said. She added that she had “no need for it,” and had “considered tossing it out.”

I wasn’t there, but I bet Pare’s next words were something like, “Noooo, don’t do that … we’ll come over as soon as we can.”

The Phillips is one of those “special” bikes that are donated to the coop every once in a while, the ones, for example, whose monetary value can bring much-needed funds to keep the strictly-volunteer coop going.

Plus, while it’s held onto its looks quite well, it’s not a kid anymore.

“I got it rideable,” Burkitt said. “But I wouldn’t take it too far.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Sundays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or@Telegraph_DeanS.