Framebuilders - Frame ID help please

I bought this bike about a year and a half ago in a used bike shop in NYC, than had it rebuilt as a fixed. Sometime during its life it was given a crappy paint job (maybe because it was stolen?). I was wondering if anyone could help me ID it. Some of the joints look fillet brazed to me, but I really don't know that much about this stuff. I have to assume it's steel because it's pretty heavy, and the only ID on the actual bike is on the stem, which reads "Schwinn Forged." It's the bike that made me fall in love with cycling all over again, so I have a pretty strong nostalgic attachment to it. Basically I was wondering if it's worth hanging on to for a rebuild project, so I thought I'd ask the experts. Any help/advice would be appreciated, thanks.

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http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3964/img1410qf5.th.jpg (http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1410qf5.jpg)http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1724/img1411be2.th.jpg (http://img59.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1411be2.jpg)http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/1377/img1413hl7.th.jpg (http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1413hl7.jpg)

I believe you have a early 70s late 60 Schwinn Continental converted to a SS. The is the stem that was used on the bike. It is not a fillet brazed bike but a electro forged steel frame. Schwinn built millions of them. Roger

Roger's right; it's a Schwinn electroforged frame. The only raw material Schwinn used for building these frames were coils of 1010 steel strip. Sheldon Brown has a great article by Marc Muller describing the unique process Schwinn used to build these frames here on his website (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/varsity.html).

Thanks for the link, that was a great read. I'd heard about electo forging, but never thought much about it because the bikes were so heavy, and old.....kinda makes you feel a bit different about those Varsities, huh?

Man, thanks so much for the help and info. Much appreciated. I think I'm going to hang on to this one...

That was a really interesting article about that frame. and I got to ride that sucker in the 5 boro! yeah :eek:

That was my first road bike. I bet I put 20,000 miles on that bad boy in jr & sr high school. I always felt right at home on it. I left it in a garage somewhere in mpls after I broke up with an old girlfriend. Sure miss her (the bike)lol. If you love the bike, fix it up. Ride on dude. Tom.