Wanderer's roots go back to 1885. In this year, Johann Baptist Winklhofer and Richard Adolf Jaenicke founded the company "Chemnitzer Velociped-Depôt Winklhofer & Jaenicke" in Chemnitz , which was entered in the commercial register on February 26, 1885, for the sale and repair of bicycles. A little later they already made some high wheels themselves and from the winter of 1885/1886 a factory production was prepared. Winklhofer and Jaenicke therefore traded as "Chemnitzer Veloziped-Fabrik Winklhofer & Jaenicke" from January 4, 1887.
In 1894, Winklhofer and Jaenicke acquired an area of 19,000 m² in Schönau near Chemnitz and built an administration building and warehouse there with a 52-metre front, a shed building with 2,500 square meters of floor space, a machine house, a boiler house, a stable and a coach house. The entrepreneurs had a semi-detached house built opposite for themselves. In 1896 the company name was changed to "Wanderer Fahrradwerke AG". During this time, attempts were made to encapsulate a cardan drive within the framework of the bicycle , but failed to implement it; the cardan drive was introduced in automobile construction in 1898 by Renault. By 1900, Wanderer had become an important company in the bicycle market and held various patents , including the first German two-speed hub gear.
From 1899, Wanderer began mass production of milling machines . This step was largely motivated by the fact that the milling machines available on the market at the time did not meet the accuracy requirements of Winklhofer and Jaenicke.
The first motorcycle was built in 1902. The one-cylinder engine of the model had a special feature on the inlet side, a so-called snifting valve, which was constantly subjected to spring pressure and opened via the negative pressure generated in the cylinder by the downward-moving piston.
In 1903/1904 series production of typewriters began under the Continental brand and in 1909 addition or two-type calculators.
Wanderer-Werke itself concentrated very successfully on the production of high-quality machine tools, typewriters, calculating machines and bicycles. The company's cycling team has achieved many sporting successes. The Wanderer Continental silenta typewriter, which worked almost silently, was unrivaled worldwide with its special lever mechanism.
