Originally Posted by
thumpism
I'm having trouble replying. When I type it drops characters so it takes forever to complete a response and the long reply I composed in Notepad can't be pasted ito the reply box.
There's already a thread on the typing and I've deleted cookies per the recommendation.
Thumpism has been having trouble with posting as he mentions above, but somehow his web browser let him work in PM. Below is his reply from my questions above:
Originally Posted by thumpism
How did you get my photo to display large like that? I can only post thumbnail-sized pics. It does look good, doesn't it?
"Ice box" white, not metallic. I was managing Seattle Cycles at the time and took advantage of the position, although I was sorely tempted by the Voyager SP as an alternative; a comparable complete bike for the price of a frameset. I got it late in the year so the new decal came out shortly after I received my frame and I thought at the time that the new looked much better than the "monumental" design they offered on my bike. I've since grown to like it a lot more for its rarity. Proof of my early adopter status.
I recall this being a stock size and color in the stock touring geometry. The only options I remember were cantilever braze-ons, which I go back and forth on kicking myself for not getting, and lowrider braze-ons. You can see how they did those on the fork, behind the blades as is done with many rack braze-ons and not through the blades as you usually see them. When the frameset first arrived they'd forgotten those so I had to return the fork for modification. Seemed to take for freakin' ever to get it back, as you might imagine. I'm using Universal brakes and you can see that the pads on the rear are at the top of the slots while the fronts are at the bottom, so you can imagine some clearance variations with resulting problems in the back. Cantilevers would not have done that, presumably, although a buddy with an older Paramount tandem went around and around with the factory on the placement of his canti posts.
Regarding the serial number, I'll check the details but recall it's on the BB. I'm not a Schwinn or Paramount geek so am not familiar with the formats. Give me some details and I'll verify which it is. Thanks for your interest in the frame. I need to ride it more and will try to do so. I've only seen one decal like mine in person, on a frame belonging to a guy named Davis who worked at East Coasters in Blacksburg VA.
As far as inserting an image, click on the thumbnail twice and it will open in a seperate page. Right click on it and a menu opens and on option should be "Copy image location." Select this option. In the message box type "[ IMG ] (without the spaces) [ /IMG ]" and paste the location inbetween.
That's interesting about the frame being a stock touring frameset. It is the first touring model I've seen with these decals. It's also the first white one. Primarily I've only seen black (mine), blue, and gray. Those have all been road frames and metallic.
The Chicago serial number scheme carried over to the first Waterford models. It was on the left dropout and began with a letter for the month. The next two numbers were the year of production. The final numbers were the frame number for that month. Thus E8337 was May 1983, the 37th frameset.
At some point they moved this to the bottom of the BB shell as seen in this January '85 model which has the newer decals but the old serial number system.
Sometime later in '85 they moved to the new self describing serial numbers which included size information.
BTW, here is my '83 as it currently sits with its new tubular wheelset. Got to run. More later.
