Originally Posted by
Metacortex
The King Sting was only offered in '81-'82 however it was fillet brazed and the headtubes for those models were stamped up to 6 years in advance of them being brazed into frames. Because of that those bikes can only be properly dated via the date stamps on original components and most importantly the 4-digit stamp on the headbadge that indicates the day the bike was built. Please post pics of both the frame serial as well as the 4-digit number stamped in the original headbadge. If the original badge is missing then it may not be worth restoring since a major proof of provenance will be missing. In that case I'd probably part the bike out and/or seek a more complete example to restore.
If they only made King Stings in 1981 and 1982, can you please explain why blue is not an available color either year, as per catalogs? (Black with gold trim and silver with blue trim). Mine is solid blue. And other blue examples can be found online, described as being 1980. I think it was introduced in late 1979, after catalogs were printed, and was excluded from 1980 catalog because Schwinn treaded gingerly in BMX and ATB field. They were slow to get into new things (like lightweight road bikes), and had a lifetime guaranty on bikes and didn’t know if they’d stand up to the abuse of off roading.