Originally Posted by
thinktubes
It wouldn’t hurt to check. Morton Grove is still old school and you might luck out if you get a sympathetic clerk.
I might try it, just to find out when it was first issued; I wouldn't feel right asking for any information about the prior owner (and I doubt the City would outright share it).
I'm not sure what the spirit of the license was though, so I'm a
bit hesitant to ask. Could be the PD simply wanted to reduce theft, but most city licensing schemes are inherently more insidious.
Originally Posted by
eeuuugh
Nice score in incredible condition! There's a market for those old Schwinn saddles, especially looking almost unworn as this one is.
The originality of the bike is the only reason I just don't want to change it. It's survived 64 years exactly as it was made and only had a few reflectors put on it over the years. I think it's earned it's right to keep the butt hatchet.
Mind, this is one of the reasons I'm on the fence about time capsule bikes. Unless they're spec'ed out exactly as one likes them, the original spec can always work against ownership enjoyment. This is one of the reasons I love 1950's-era Raleigh Sports; I like them just as they were built.
Originally Posted by
SirMike1983
Schwinn periodically changed the handlebars on the "lightweight" bikes. The bars from 1965 and earlier tend to be the better than the later ones. There were several patterns of tourist and north road style bars that worked well for the bikes up through the mid-1960s. In the later 1960s, those larger bars you mention appeared. They have an oversized and kind of clunky feel to them. Some people like them (especially people who are used to "cruiser" type bikes), but I think they're too much on a diamond frame utility bike.
The other issue was that the variety of stems offered dried up over time. From the late 1930s through the 1950s, Schwinn offered a nice variety of stems if you wanted a medium or taller stem. Over time, the variety of stem sizes you could buy dwindled to the extent that by the 1960s, the utility bikes generally got whatever the middleweight bikes got. Those later stems tended to be short and not offer much in the way of handlebar height adjustment. The stem on your bike is fairly desirable because it is well-made (a bit heavy maybe) and was used for only a short period of time. The only downside is they tend to offer only limited adjustment.
I wish we had thrift store finds like yours around here. A standard or tall frame Schwinn from the first half of the 1960s and before is pretty good. It seems like around here, it's all burned out department store junkers in the thrift shops.
I've generally kept my nose out of anything Schwinn from the '60s other than Paramounts - I had to research the winged badge to remind myself when it was used (
after buying the bike, no less) - so any additional variants between this bar and the cartoonish cruiser-sized North Road are news to me.
I'll have to look up the stems too; wasn't really aware of the options. This one, as you discerned, has a short quill and is currently as high as I dare raise it. I'm sure the "AS" bolts give it some fizz within the Schwinn community, but if I had to take my pick of any Schwinn stem, it would be a pre-war razor back. I even have a long-quill repop of one sitting around here because I dare say a Raleigh Sports would look very nice with one on it.
After all, if one has to put a heavy steel stem on a bike, might as well have one with pizzazz.
Believe me, our thrift shops are just like yours. This one shop is an anomaly and usually has
interesting stuff, but in 15+ years, this is the only time I've ever seen anything worth buying.
As for bicycles, the only things that I've found
remotely local and chosen to keep are the '65 "Huffy" Moulton (complete), '79 Rudge (complete), the '79 UK Superbe (complete...mess), '82 Schwinn Superior (frameset), and the Leo (Leoworken Chlorodont) Bottecchia (frameset). The latter two came from the same shop, while both the Rudge and Moulton required ~25 miles into the next county to retrieve.
There's a notable exception to that list in regards to Raleigh Twenties. They grow on trees around here, just raise your arm and pull one off the branch. I've picked up four locally - I might be undercounting that - repaired one (with a Hans Ohrt Beverly Hills sticker) for someone off Craigslist, and my neighbor bought two. Every single one I've come across has been a '70, while the neighbors were '75s.
My first '70:
The Hans Ohrt Twenty:
Bought from a local shop, don't recall what I did with it:
Mine with the neighbor's '75s. One of the '75s turned out to have been hit and twisted at the headtube:
The Bronze Green '70 from the bike shop; they took it in trade. I bought it and did next to nothing except grips and a front tire after this picture:
Blasptwenty, a '70:
Originally Posted by
52telecaster
When I see a Schwinn three speed I hope the frame is rusted and awful because I only really like them for the hubs, switchgear and brakes.
I tried not to laugh at this, but did.
I've become sympathetic to some of these electroforged buckets over the years, but completely sympathize. Granted, those Weinmann sidepulls under the Schwinn Approved name don't do a darn thing. Everyone speaks of Schwinn's rigorous reliability testing (which was clearly influenced by price given the story of Simplex vs. Huret), but reliability is nothing if the component doesn't do its job, and that was a clear failure of both the sidepulls
and the 5-speed "Schwinn Approved" Atom and Shimano freewheels they spec'ed for years (which tended to chain skate). If Schwinn hadn't been so price picky, centerpulls could have been default along the cable-brake models and given
some hope of stopping these beasts. Plus, the Weinmann/Dia-Compe design does well with wider rims.
-Kurt