Richard,
I am still going through A LOT of bicycle catalogs to get them categorized and answer all who have inquired about certain bicycle brands. In this heap of paper, there are catalogs and ad's on bicycle tire rubber, bicycle tire rubber companies, bicycle drop forgings for cranks brake levers hubs sprockets frame lugs etc, and, to get to your inquiry, a few on spoke manufacturers from the high wheel and TOC eras.
Once I get through all of this categorizing, I can look as to what was used back then.
An curious question to ask is the difference in steel for straight gage straight pull headed, headed and bent and the early single and double butted spokes which had to take in account the drawing process which work hardened the spoke and were the spokes annealed (softened) after drawing for OD threading for nipples or threading into high wheel hub flanges and heading at the ends for fitting to high wheel/hard tire safety rims?
Stay tuned as your question is an important one.
Mike Cates, CA.
