Dec. 21,
1895 Sporting Lifehttp://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/SportingLife/1895/VOL_26_NO_13/SL2613013.pdfAmong the interested spectators was Thomas Hunter, manager of the Hunter Arms Company, of Fulton, N. Y., manufacturers of the celebrated L. C. Smith gun. Mr. Hunter was satisfied with the fine array of Smith guns on the grounds, and found that he was in a crowd of Smith gun cranks.
Mr. Hunter was explaining some of the good points of
the new Hunter bicycle, which that company are now making, and the words that caught the boys most forcibly were: “Hunter wheels are made like the Smith guns.”
These pinbacks begin appearing about 1896
1897
Sporting Life ad and Remington is mentioned under Trade News
http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/SportingLife/1897/VOL_30_NO_01/SL3001018.pdf1897 Price List
The frames were crOwn steel jOe
No idea as to the source of the steel. Crown steel was offered on doubles with the first run of Pigeon Guns in 1893, No. A 1 (SN 1130) in 1894, and the No. 3 about 1895.
“Crown”, however, was the brand name of the Crown and Cumberland Steel Co., Allegany County, Maryland which was established in 1872. Related to the Panic of 1893, Crown and Cumberland Steel was sold at a trustee sale in 1894, and then reorganized as Cumberland Steel and Tinplate Co. In 1900, the company became part of Crucible Steel.
BTW: it's as hard to trace the maker of all the tradename bikes as the tradename shotguns
http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/bicyclebrands/bicycle-brands-companies.php 
