In 1885 Johann Winklhofer and Richard Jaenicke established 'Chemnitzer-Velociped-Depot Winklhofer & Jaenicke' a bicycle shop in Chemnitz, Germany. In 1887 they adopted the 'Wanderer' brand for the bicycles that they were building. Over the next several years they added motorcycles, cars, machine tools and typewriters to their product range. Wanderer is one of the great German bicycle brands of the first half of the 20th century.

In 1916 Johann Winklhofer struck again - he founded Johann Winklhofer Maschinenfabrik in Munchen, Germany. In 1920 the name was changed to 'Johann Winklhofer & Söhne' and in 1922 they started manufacturing bicycle chains in volume. The brand J.Wi.S is a contraction of Johann Winklhofer & Söhne.

J.Wi.S appears on this web site because in 1937 it developed the J.Wi.S derailleur system. This was a fascinating fork type derailleur system, but it had no chain tensioner. Instead the chain itself stretches and contracts under the influence of a built in spring.

It is cheeky to say it, but the 1937 J.Wi.S derailleur system was suspiciously derivative of the 1934 Brivex system. This was developed in Sweden and patented in many countries including Germany. Hmmm.