Originally Posted by
sheddle
I've got a 1988 Schwinn KOM that I'm in discussions with both a bike shop owner and Richard Schwinn on Waterford with- regarding whether or not it's a Greenville or a Panasonic Schwinn. SN is E800082. If this is a Panasonic, it'd almost certainly be a rebadged
Panasonic MC-7500 (the weird lug on the unicrown fork is a dead giveaway). Date code on headbadge is 2028.
Would this be a National/Panasonic? Per the thread, the year/month codes would be reversed, but Richard Schwinn (who I'm inclined to believe) says a Greenville bike SN would be "something like EZ800082".
As noted, the first two characters are reversed from what what I would expect to see on a Japanese manufactured Schwinn. While I typically don't track Greenville serial numbers, a member has reported a Greenville manufactured 1988 KOM with a S/N starting with F8, which is consistent with the format on the subject bicycle. By this time very few mass volume bicycle companies were manufacturing their own forks. It was more cost effective to have Tange manufacture the forks, especially if they were Unicrown style.