In September 1878, Weed Sewing Machine Company built the last of the fifty bikes under the first contract. Albert Pope chose the brand name Columbia for the first high-wheelers "produced" by Pope Manufacturing. These first machines, copied from the Excelsior Duplex model, were made from seventy-seven parts that were made in-house, and only the rubber tires purchased from a supplier. Pope Manufacturing sold all its bicycles from the first production run. In 1879, production and sales were around 1,000, the last year of the Excelsior Duplex copies. George Herbert Day worked as a clerk at Weed Sewing Machine Company when the company started producing high-wheelers for Pope Manufacturing. In early 1879, Day was promoted to corporate secretary. One historian characterized Day as "Albert Pope's right-hand man in Hartford between 1878 and 1899." Albert's cousin Edward started work as the Pope Manufacturing bookkeeper in 1880. George Bidwell, an independent salesman from Buffalo, New York, purchased an imported Excelsior Duplex high-wheeler from Pope. Learning in a correspondence from Pope that he would be producing his own bicycle, Bidwell started taking orders for the Columbias. Bidwell sold seventy-five of the machines, holding down payments for each. Pope could only deliver about twenty-five. Shortly later, Pope hired Bidwell as Superintendent of Agencies, a job sending Bidwell on the road to teach sale agents the art of promotion. Bidwell taught agents how to promote the sport through riding halls and schools. Redesigning the ordinaries In 1880, George Fairfield introduced design changes and proposed two ordinary Columbia models. Each weighed about forty-one pounds and featured an improved seat-spring and an improved head-adjustment. The Standard Columbia with a forty-eight inch wheel was introduced in 1880 priced at $87.50. The Special Columbia offered "a closed Stanley-style head," a "built-in" ball-bearing assembly, and full nickel-plating for $132.50. In 1881, Pope gained controlling interest of Weed, catalyzing a fifteen-fold increase in Weed's stock price. George Day was promoted to president of Weed. After the introduction of the high wheeler, Pope bought Pierre Lallement's original patent for the bicycle, and aggressively bought all other bicycle patents he could find, amassing a fortune by restricting the types of bicycles other American manufacturers could make and charging them royalties. He used the latest technologies in his bicycles—inventions such as ball bearings in all moving parts, and hollow steel tubes for the frame, and he spent a great deal of money promoting bicycle clubs,