One way of examining these objects is looking at the contexts of use they travel through over time. Each context applies a patina, both literal and on the object itself, and figurative effecting the ways people understand an object, and use it to understand themselves. One may envision a biography of an object that is created as it moves from person to person, and place to place . Mopeds as a commodity have a particularly rich object biography, and by exploring the contexts that these objects have moved through one can better understand how they have come to be understood by people today.

In Europe after World War Two, dozens of companies began to manufacture and market small light two wheel vehicles that were powered by a combination of pedal and gasoline motor power; mopeds. During the 1950s and 1960s these companies found a market for these mopeds in the rising youth population that emerged as an increased spending demographic in Europe.

During the 1970s, North America became a market for these European mopeds, as laws were created that recognized mopeds as a distinct class of motor vehicle with fewer licensing requirements than either cars or motorcycles. Although initially marketed as a solution to rising gas prices, as in Europe these vehicles were largely popular with adolescents that could not afford larger vehicles. This popularity continued into the first half of the 1980s, after which mopeds became increasingly rare and the stores that sold and serviced these vehicles eventually closed down.

Lacking a source for new machines, and the infrastructure for the maintenance of older ones, the set of mopeds in the United States became older and increasingly in disrepair and disuse. This becomes yet another context for mopeds, a contexts of discard. In varying states of degeneration, mopeds sat unused and forgotten, as other objects replaced them in people’s lives.

From this context of discard, mopeds moved on to a context of reuse. Discovering these vehicles in second hand contexts, such as barns or at yard sales, new people took it on themselves to repair and reuse them in contemporary contexts. The age, uniqueness and rarity of these objects set them apart from the majority of objects, mass produced, readily available, and largely disposable, that make up mass consumption today. Through processes of restoration and modification, both aesthetically and mechanically owners in this context physically change the moped as a conscious reflection of their social identity.

Meanwhile in other parts of the world mopeds continue to be manufactured, and used by populations creating very different meanings from the vintage enthusiasts that populate North America. These different context do not occur in isolation. Instead contact between global contexts has in recent years increased creating a network of contexts where worldwide trade of parts and ideas flow between Europe, India, Brazil and the United States where individuals continue to make, use, change, and understand mopeds.