La progression de la bicyclette en France depuis un demi-siècle — L’Officiel du cycle, 20 September 1952, the Fiscal Plates, 1898 to 1951

From L’Officiel du cycle, du motocycle et du camping, 20 September 1952, the paper’s special number for the 1952 Paris Salon du Cycle et du Motocycle, page 20: a table of the number of bicycles in France each year from 1898 to 1951, from the sale of fiscal plates. The table is transcribed in full; the summary is Ebykr’s.

— Page 1 —
LA PROGRESSION DE LA BICYCLETTE
EN FRANCE DEPUIS UN DEMI-SIÈCLE

d’après la vente des vignettes fiscales

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. A short italic headnote stands above the table. The figures below come from the statistics of the Ministère des Finances, Direction des Impôts Indirects, on the sale of plates, stamps or fiscal vignettes. They are minima, since the number of cyclists not paying the tax has always been large, put at a quarter above the official figures. Their great advantage, the paper says, is to show the almost constant progress of the bicycle across the country, a magnificent result owed to the efforts of the producers as much as to those of the vélocistes, on whom falls the upkeep and repair of this enormous mass of cycles. The figures doubled four times over: from 1898 to 1900, from 1900 to 1907, from 1907 to 1920, from 1920 to 1938, and again from 1923 to 1949. The maximum was reached in 1951 with nearly 12 million machines, and the years that marked falls, of very various size, were 1915, 1928, 1929, 1933, 1934, 1939, 1940, 1943, 1944, 1945 and 1950.]

Années — Totaux
1898 — 483.414
1899 — 838.856
1900 — 975.878
1901 — 1.106.768
1902 — 1.191.554
1903 — 1.310.223
1904 — 1.520.458
1905 — 1.683.723
1906 — 1.790.679
1907 — 2.059.740
1908 — 2.244.594
1909 — 2.471.040
1910 — 2.697.406
1911 — 2.980.985
1912 — 3.168.521
1913 — 3.477.973
1914 — 3.552.474
1915 — 1.886.874
1916 — 1.949.646
1917 — 2.030.326
1918 — 2.230.901
1919 — 3.229.315
1920 — 4.308.129
1921 — 4.345.714
1922 — 5.302.474
1923 — 5.837.923
1924 — 6.370.644

Années — Totaux
1925 — 6.763.354
1926 — 7.112.818
1927 — 8.583.728
1928 — 6.818.407
1929 — 6.767.058
1930 — 6.820.027
1931 — 7.123.341
1932 — ——
1933 — 7.054.485
1934 — 6.968.564
1935 — 7.063.689
1936 — 7.568.139
1937 — 8.094.903
1938 — 8.788.040
1939 — 8.495.960
1940 — 7.430.520
1941 — 10.049.210
1942 — 10.711.808
1943 — 10.513.429
1944 — 9.274.196
1945 — 8.306.166
1946 — 8.817.325
1947 — 9.645.151
1948 — 10.703.139
1949 — 11.893.380
1950 — 11.866.799
1951 — 11.914.904

[A full page of text and figures inside a single ruled border, with no illustration. The title stands at the head in two lines of wide-spaced outline capitals, “LA PROGRESSION DE LA BICYCLETTE” over “EN FRANCE DEPUIS UN DEMI-SIÈCLE”, with the line “d’après la vente des vignettes fiscales” set in italic sans-serif below and to the right, above a short rule. The headnote follows in four italic paragraphs of seriffed type. Below a double rule the figures are set as a table in two halves divided by a double vertical rule, each half headed “Années” and “Totaux” with a short dash under each heading, the years running 1898 to 1924 at the left and 1925 to 1951 at the right. Each year is joined to its figure by a row of leader dots, and thousands are separated by points. The row for 1932 carries a long dash in place of a figure. No signature appears on the page.]