And you thought your Fillet Brazed Schwinn was old!
 

A friend just ran across this oldie in the last week or so. Talk about an ancient Schwinn. Best he can narrow it down it's made somewhere between 1938-40. Anyone else have a clue as to year by the decals, etc. Surprisingly, it feels as light as my SS, before the 3 piece conversion anyway. Single speed freewheel. Headbadge says Schwinn AS Superior. In other words not a New World model. Second in line behind the Paramount:)...Enjoy!

I have more pics, but they're 2.2 MB a piece. 7-10 minutes a piece for me to D/L.,,,,BD

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...r/Superior.jpg

Looks like the bar bike I'm planning to make.

You probably are already doing this, but just in case.....

Key to downloading pictures is to reduce the quality first. Go to Microsoft Office Picture Manager, select edit picture, then select compress picture (bottom of the list on the right), then choose compress for document. That will take a 2Meg pic and reduce it to about 200K or so. I then download the lower resolution pictures to Flickr. By lowering the resolution, it allows me to download 10X the pictures per month, yet still keep a free account. And I think the pics still show adequate/good detail.

You still end up with a good pic. here's one I did earlier today, of my Criss Cross headed to Craigs List. Once the pics are in Flickr, you can insert them into the text of your C/L ad in HTML:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3388/...1b5f0ffe_o.jpg

Sandblast it, powdercoat it, decal it and put on 700C alloy wheels and tires! It will easily last another century!

Woah! That thing is awesome! Are those letters on the chainring?

Photoshop 7 is what I used for this pic. D/L them from Yahoo Webmail to the desktop to work on them is the problem.,,,,BD

Yep. letters on the chainring.....Sandblast? Powdercoat? 700's? Nah, this isn't the kind of bike to do that to. Maybe an 80's Miyata
or something like that, but not an early fillet brazed Schwinn. It has hand painted fork darts for cripes sake, lol.

Jeepers that's sweet. I don't know why these early FB Schwinns are so fascinating to me. half of it's the obscurity and half of it's that they run so counter to the balloon tired cliche of prewar american bikes. And then they are just really nice bikes on top of all that.
This one was on ebay last year and I just didn't have the money;
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...n/66c2_1-1.jpg
so I found this poor substitute, It's a 1940sih Shelby Traveler. Not Schwinn quality but really light (For 1940) and fillet brazed;
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...icture3986.jpg
I'll be posting the full story with more pictures someday soon.
Your friend is a lucky fellow.

I'm digging that saddle BD. :D

Seriously though. Looks like a bike that makes quite a statement. I like it. Especially the chainwheel. :thumb:

Nice looking schwinn!

btw, this is what I use for (batch) photo resizing. Do one photo, a bunch, or do an entire directory full, in one click. http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/

That's just a gorgeous Schwinn, thanks for posting!

I have a similar bike. Mine has the same chain guard, same crank (the Superior model crank) and therefore the same BB (English thread), but has a "New World" head badge and New World decals that are getting pretty hard to see. Mine is a three speed, with Sturmey Archer AW dated "0" i.e. 1940.

Kickstand is bolt-on, correct?

You might post its serial number, though it won't be of much help in dating, the old Schwinn numbers are lost.

Sweet old bike. The welded on kickstand makes it 46 or newer. The forward facing dropouts with the fender stays attached to them put in that age bracket too.

Actually, my fillet-brazed Schwinns are about the same age (picture attached).

I have to agree with King of Kandence with regard to age. I can’t really see the kickstand mount, but assuming it’s welded to the frame, it would be post-war. In addition, the chainguard mounting point, fender stay attachments and dropouts all point to 1946 or later. The Superior stayed in the lineup until the early 1950’s.

I really like the Superior chainring. Thanks for posting the photo.

Regards,
Alan

Yep,Schwinn lightweights are cool, 3 speed continental,late 40's?

Wow -- a rare find. Pinpointing the date will be difficult unless the serial number is in Waterford's archives, but it is post-War. I don't think you'll find the serial number (if it is past the '48 fire and in the records) in the online lists, as it is specific to the Superiors (in the format Bxxx, I think) and was not part of the main factory records, but part of the Paramount "cage" records. Waterford has many of these (not sure how far back they go) and I think it costs $50 to find out.

This bike is worth restoring, IMHO!

Get those pics up where we can see them -- please. :)

Bob