EPM / CC motorcycle fob

I was hoping you could identify a 1912 Birmingham silver motorcycle fob, or recommend someone who can help. It has the letters ‘EPM / CC.’ Justus Wagener, email.

Although I have listings of many motorcycle clubs from the Edwardian days to 1970s, and Mortons Archive will hold reports of far more clubs of the period within the columns of The Motor Cycle and Motor Cycling, I have no details on the EPM / CC.

The likelihood is the club was a Cycling Club or Car Club. Examples of both organised competitive and social events for motorcyclists. If the club was motorcycle specific it may well have the initials MCC, derived from Motor Cycle Club.

Such medals were presented to riders/ drivers who achieved a certain standard in local competition events such as reliability trials or hill climbs. Or they may have been given to all motorcycle riders who entered a local non-competitive, often annual, motorcycle or even joint car and motorcycle social run. These were often grand occasions with local dignitaries waving them off, a lunch-stop at a posh hotel and finishing with tea on the lawns of a wealthy landowner or business person’s estate. Mileages were variable, perhaps 50-100 miles, with local newspapers carrying extensive reports of proceedings. In many cases copies of these survive with local history societies or archives, which may prove helpful to you.

Regardless of whether the silver fob was presented for competitive achievement or as a club social run keepsake, such awards were often good quality items as you have.

Often they were cast in sterling silver (rather than sliver plated base metal), hallmarked and finished with enamel embellishments. And since yours comes from Birmingham, it is probably even better quality then many, as the city had/has a bespoke

jewellery quarter.