This is my brothers bike. He got it new from my grand pop in the 60's and yes he still has it.

There is quite a following for these, and they are well known. Then and now.
Your example needs a front brake lever and cable assay. at the minimum. Maybe something is wrong with the drum brake, easy to check, not easy to find parts for for a reasonable price. I would not bother looking for the red sparkle vinyl brake lever cover to match the rear brake lever.

Yeah, I remember those. Jim Schramsky had an Orange Krate and was the envy of the neighborhood. I recall gazing at all the chrome tubes, levers, cables, and high-tech things on the back wheel that my bike didn't have. Cool bikes, very classic Americana.

Sure do, but I remember them from later in the '70s. There was also the Lemon Krate and Orange Krate...if my memory is still good after all these years.

Most of the kids I knew had stingrays, which were great for sitting on under street lights when hanging out at night with the guys. You would even see 15 and 16 year olds with them back then. I sometimes cobbled together a stingray as a kid, depending on what parts I could scrounge up. They weren't really good for anything more than short distances, and doing jumps. I usually, however, had drop bar road bikes and "English Racers". I used to do some serious long distance riding back then. Good thing your brother held onto his, since they seem to be getting (at least asking) small fortunes for them. One way to pay for retirement.

Yes, I had mine stolen from our garage when I was 12 , and never forgot it. My best friend had the Pea Picker.

The cool kid in the 'hood had an Orange Krate. I really wanted any one of the Krates. Crappy bikes to ride, but as a collectible 60's bike they're hard to beat. American Baroque at it's best.

Willing to bet if you put the Apple Krate in a line of of 10 other collector bikes of the same time period, it would get the most attention.

We all rode sting-ray "like" bikes back then, I can't remember anyone in our neighborhood who got a real Schwinn. The Krates came later, we all had graduated to working on our older brother's cars, or cobbling together a motorcycle by then.

Damn, I wanted one of those when I was a kid! Way too expensive for my parents, though; instead they bought me a 26" Western Flyer I would "grow into" so they'd only have to shell out for one bike during my childhood. I still have some scars from riding that 45 lb. behemoth before I was tall enough for it...

Had two of those. One when I wsa ten 1976 and the next one I customized when I was 19 and sold it for 150bucks..bummer

Applying the front brake while in a curve with the front springer fork compressed is not a good plan for staying on two wheels.

I liked them when they came out, but I really only had eyes for the 10 speeds, I wanted light and fast, at least relatively speaking.

I had a Huffy or Murray clone, with the flat-edge, slick rear tire. I loved that 5-speed stick shifter.

Despite their coolness I still don't get the ridiculous prices some the Stingrays and especially Krates are bringing. I can understand that the nostalgia factor and their status as icons of an era would increase their collectability and value, but hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a bike that's basically unrideable? And I don't think they are especially rare, millions of these things were made, they're not like Bluebirds or Confentes.
--end of rant--

How's this? My brother-in-law was the original owner of this cream-puff and really took care of it. 100% original, right down to the tubes. It now resides in my "Museum".

fred

Those Schwinn's were way cool! I wanted one so bad, but had to settle for a beat up regular stingray, but it was way cool to, you could do a cat walk on these things for blocks.

cat walk?

aka "wheelie"

I think he meant a "manual" wheelie.

I still remember what a heave it was to get my big Stingray up on one wheel when I was still 8 or 9 years old.
Luckily it had a two-speed "overdrive", so that low gear was a snappy direct-drive low enough for me.
I got a Raleigh Record when I was 11, but still rode the green Stingray near home and off road.

I had a bright red Western Flyer with a cantilever frame and 24" wheels. Some of my friends had Stingrays - fun to ride and pop wheelies on, but I could still beat all of them in a street race thanks to my WF's larger wheels. Then one day somebody showed-up with his dad's "English Racer" and I was toast.

On my Stingray, the two-speed Bendix kickback hub was a big advantage compared to all the poor-shifting 5-speed bikes.
A drag race was less than a tenth-mile, not long enough for the extra gears to pay back what they lost off the line.
I would be in high gear and really honking less than 100 feet off the line, which panicked the older kids on their derailer bikes enough to guarantee multiple missed shifts.
It didn't hurt that I never had to sit down during a shift, which was extremely rapid as I recall.
They would have done better starting out in 2nd or 3rd.
I recall that I actually met more formidable competition in the form of single-speeders, and my older brother on his bobbed 3-speed Schwinn Racer was the fastest around.

Ah, you must be referring to a Continental.

In elementary school and junior high I had a Stingray 5 speed Fastback with narrow tires. In high school the film "On Any Sunday" came out. Since I was the only kid with an MX motorcycle, we modified conventional Stingrays to withstand the abuse we dished out trying to bust the moves of the great MX riders of the era: Roger de Coster, Joel Robert, and so on. We found out where the frames and handlebars broke and had our local welding shop weld in gussets and crossbars. I built up a 36 spoke rear wheel on a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed coaster brake hub with a twist grip shifter. We flew off loading ramps and stairwells chasing each other around the local college campus. This was years before lightweight BMX bicycles were offered. When I came back from university I found out my parents had sold my unique creation as well as my 1962 Schwinn Corvette klunker. I still haven't forgiven them for it.

My folks wouldn't waste the money - after all, they'd already bought me a Schwinn Mark IV Jaguar back in 1958 and it was still in good running condition. So I grabbed a regular Schwinn 20" frame and wheels, got the paint guy at dad's dealership to paint it '65 Chevrolet dark blue (almost black), and built my own Stingray.

My first bike build. That's where it started. Five years later I was earning money in the field.

boomers do the same thing with cars.

...and just about everything else.