Handmade pizza cutter Rosewood handle with brass, copper & glass fittings in form of a single wheel bike with lamp; Koa wood stand. 1905

This strikingly bold slicer with a form reminiscent of a single-wheeled vehicle is alleged to have been designed and fabricated by Carl Oscar Hedström, co-founder of the Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company.

While most noted for his later motorcycle designs, his early engineering focus was on bicycles.

When a boy his family moved from Sweden to Brooklyn, NYC where he spent much of his time riding his bicycle around the city often stopping at Lombardi’s Grocery store for a slice of pizza.

This slicer is thought to be a prototype of one of his earliest projects as a journeyman engineer. It was inspired by his twin passions for New York style pizza and innovative designs, as later displayed in his revolutionary motorized “pacer” bicycles.

The success of these superb machines led to an eventual partnership with George M. Hendee, a former bicycle racer and manufacturer, with whom he formed the legendary Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company.

Company legend imparts that this innovative slicer was used to cut the pizza served to the factory workers in celebration of the 1st anniversary of the founding of the Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company.