Last weekend, I went to see this - despite every known reason to mankind to run the hell away from it:
…the seller didn’t show up, so I visited the thrift stores nearby. There are three in a row in this mall.
The first two shops are not so great. The third has stuff like this on the shelf:
…and they also had this:
Mind, I’ve been farting around with C&V stuff for about 17 years now give or take a few years, and have never found anything earlier than 1970 at any thrift store (that I can remember, anyway). Only the trash piles and “free” signs have yielded anything of the kind.
The score - a 1960 Schwinn Racer dressed in black and wearing the winged Schwinn badge discontinued the previous year:
Only obvious modifications since factory - some useless reflectors for misguided peace of mind, probably added in the early 1980s.
Front one is a Schwinn piece, so this thing probably didn’t stray too far away from a local Schwinn dealer.
The biggest surprise: The original Schwinn 597 tires - capable of holding 50psi with no major dry rot.
More pics in next post…
-Kurt