This stein sold on eBay March 31 2015 for $548.00...I spotted it initially right about when the listing started and watched it closely the whole week...I had never seen it before, and the more I looked at it the more I liked it...In fact I think it's one of the best sports steins I've ever seen. I got outbid by about a couple hundred bucks as I recall...Not that I didn't think it was worth it I just didn't feel like investing that much in a stein at the time. 

I'm not a stein expert but I can tell you that within the genera of decorative sports porcelain there are a bevy of sports steins that surface...Mostly I see baseball, football, and golf ones...but I don't recall many featuring bicycles...much less a racing scene like this one...Most of the bicycle one I see seem to be high wheelers from earlier on...This one however, not only features safeties ("Safety" was the type of two wheel bicycle commonly used after high wheel bicycles went out of fashion, which we still use today) but the scene represents athletic competition...that is they are racing...The period striped shirt had me!

Looking at it closer for this feature has given me a new appreciation for sports steins...I think the most important aspect I've come to realize is the difference between the ones that are transfer ware and the ones which are hand painted....That is, in the late 19th and early 20th century porcelain companies decorated their wares by either a printing method or hand painting. Naturally, printed images would be repeatable and much less costly to produce...Whereas hand painted ones would be much more labor intensive...but also far more unique...Studying this bicycle one to try to determine if it was hand painted has driven home how much more unique and personal hand painted ones are...Sort of like the difference between a painting and a print...Don't get me wrong...printed ones, referred to by collectors as "transfer ware"...are neat but a hand painted was done by a person not a machine...The listing description doesn't say if it's transfer ware or hand painted...I don't have the science to know but I suspect it may be painted even though it's not signed. I did find a football one by Lenox by that was signed.

Adding up the attributes...possibly hand painted, but well executed art work even if it's not, features athletic endeavor...with  the period garb striped shirt...But then, it gets very interesting...I don't know my porcelain...When I spotted it initially I wasn't thinking about nationality...After the fact, when I started working on this feature I learned it's American...The maker Lenox was a New Jersey company...Somehow I think I vaguely thought it was an English piece made for the American market...For me, made on American soil creates a surge of interest and causes me to reevaluate it to a higher level of respect.