The Peerless Kick Start is a special fan for more than just being rare. What makes the fan special is because it hit the market at a time when patents on innovative AC fan motors limited the competition. Patents expire after a certain amount of time, or intellectual property owners license their patents to manufacturers for a revenue stream. But in 1904, when Peerless decided to go to market with their first AC fan, they were unable to obtain a license to any of the current best practices for starting an AC fan motor.
Of these methods, by far the most popular was the shaded pole motor patented by Elihu Thomson in the early 1890's and adapted by Hasler in the mid 1890's. The former invention was utilized by GE for their fan motors (the Pancake Fans) and the latter by Westinghouse for their fan motors (the "Tesla Fan"). Unfortunately, this meant Peerless had no technology to use to start their new AC fan motor. Perhaps Westinghouse and GE were not offering licenses, perhaps they were too expensive, or perhaps Peerless preferred to innovate around this problem.
The result is the AC Peerless Type B: The Kick Start. This motor starts by manually turning the rotor through the kick start mechanism, thus eliminating the need for any shaded poles. Please find below the original US Patent for this invention:
