dirtman

I happened across a guy who's got a garage full of new in the box Sears and Murray bikes, only two are three speeds.
I've been looking for a pair of loaner three speeds for down the shore so I don't have to loan out my good Raleigh or Rollfast bikes.
He's got two taller frame 'Free Spirit' bikes, both with Shimano 3CC coaster brake hubs.
Not that I'm looking for 'department store' bikes, but these both have wider than usual Araya w/o chrome steel rims, something I didn't expect on a Sears bike.
The bars, cranks, stem, and pedals are all typical Wald items, nothing great but nothing terrible either.
The cranks look identical to what's on my mid 60's Rollfast Aeroflight.
I checked the numbers, and both of the Sears bikes are made by Murray in the late 70's.
Both have wide, double sprung Messinger cruiser type saddles, Wald mustache shaped bars with only a slight rise to them, and Shimano 333 front hubs.
Both have rather stout fenders, the front fender is peaked much like the fenders on my older Rollfast.
The tires are Carlisle gumwalls. Both bikes are still wrapped up in their original boxes, he's asking $150 each or two for $250.
He had one there he put together and it rode pretty well, but it showed he had no clue how to adjust a bike. If I buy one, or two, I'd be putting them together myself.

The way I see it is that a department store bike from back then is a far cry better than a Chinese department store bike these days. Both of the Sears bikes are made in the USA.

I've looked around for a couple of better bikes for cheap, but with the cost of tires and parts these days, I'll soon have more in fixing up something that's only going to be a loaner than its worth.
He had 11 of these bikes, he's down to just two left, and a few Huffy single speeds in less than a week now. Since Walmart stopped selling bikes, and since we don't have any bike shops, bikes seem to be at a premium lately.
A walk through the flea market found me nothing but $400 Huffy bikes with lots of rust and flat tires.

vintagebicycle

Price wise on something like those is up to the buyer and their intended use.
I've run a pair of cheap Huffy three speeds from the early 70's on the boardwalk for years, I picked them up for $100 when they were almost new. They're far from it now due to years at the shore but they work just fine. at the end of every season I give them a de-rusting treatment and touch up any bare metal. I think both of mine still have the original tires too. They get stored indoors, and I've torn them down a few times for a relube but otherwise they're as they were bought.

From what i've seen of the newer stuff, I doubt i'd get more than a few seasons out of one, so yeah, the older stuff holds up better, so long as you take some effort to maintain them.
Free Spirit, or Murray quality was all over the place back then, but most were on par with other American bikes besides Schwinn. Looking back, mostly at 70's bikes, without decals, it would be hard to tell most American brands apart when you compare Murray, Huffy, AMF, Iverson, Ross, Rollfast, and Columbia. They all used electro welded frames, they all had one piece bottom brackets, and they all pretty much were clones of one another.
Rollfast and Columbia generally were better quality bikes, as was Ross, but mostly in components not so much by design differences. Most of those bikes all sold for well under $100 back then, so none were very far ahead of the other.

The fact those have Araya rims isn't that rare, by the late 70's and early 80's American brands were beginning to outsource more and more parts, and the fact its set up with a Shimano 3CC hub, tells me they likely outsourced the whole wheelset for those. I've had a few mid 70's Columbia and Rollfast bikes that came through with Araya chrome rims too, while others right along side of them from day one had some cheap, stamped in-house made rim.

Ross was the one known for making their own steel rims and using nothing but, at least up until aluminum rims became common.

Try offering the guy a bit less. Bike prices are all over the place lately, a lot depends on the area. But this is pretty much bike season and the 4th of July is almost here so folks will be looking for bikes to use on vacation. Bike rental places are low on bikes, and some are downright expensive, so the market will no doubt heat up for the holiday. .

Chuck M 

These two points are what I would use to evaluate if they were worth it. As a flip, I don't think anyone would think these are a good bet. But as keepers, and with being N.O.S., I would maybe get a little joy from putting them to use.

2old

I have all the bikes needed, but would jump at that price for two NOS Sears' bikes.

repechage

As a pair of bikes to use, OK price but I expect they need a full service, the grease is 40+ years old.
These bikes came into the shop New decades ago and it took 2-3 hours of labor to get them acceptable from a bike shop's perspective.
adjust bearings, (including one where the headset bearing retainers were backwards) true wheels, tighten up spokes, adjust brakes, there a real problem, cables needed lubrication, and the brakes were a challenge to get to acceptably function. the Austrian imported units were much better.
As a purchase to flip for profit? No.
These were not that great to begin with.
A thin slice above bikes we would turn away. There was no goodwill to charge a customer a chunk of money and they were not going to be happy with the result.
Being tactful was a trick, a few times, we turned them away, the customer went elsewhere, then were back to buy a decent bike.

oldspokes

Back in the day, we used to look at that sort of bike and see them as total trash, but as time went on, and worse 'trash' came along they don't look half as bad.

Years ago I worked at a shop that sold an array of American brand bikes, they had everything but Schwinn, plus a handful of imports.
There were many people who would buy only American bikes and wouldn't look at anything else. They wanted a bike they could work on with regular household tools, so they bought a Columbia, Ross, Rollfast, or similar. Back then we looked at those bikes as being superior to bikes like Huffy, Murray, Free Spirit, and a few other department store brands that were common then. The main issues were fit and finish, which in most cases was poor due to the fact that who ever assembled the bike for sale had little knowledge of bikes or just didn't care. When I was a kid, one neighbor used to work at the local Sears store in town, he worked in the shoe department. He drove an old beat up car and he carried a hammer and a few tools to deal with a started that would get stuck from time to time. It was likely the extent of his mechanical knowledge since he sold office supplies before that. Somehow he became the guy who assembled the bicycles at Sears. This was a guy who would come to my father back then for help to assemble patio furniture or that cheap particle board shelving they used to sell because he didn't have a clue, yet he was assembling bikes.
I remember one running joke was that Sears wouldn't allow him to pump up tires any more because he blown up so many tires, so they put them out with what ever amount of air was in them out of the box. I remember seeing one he put together with two rear fenders because that's how it came out of the box. They had apparently shipped it with an extra rear fender, so rather than seeing something was wrong, he just bolted it up the best he could figure how to and out on the floor it went. Bikes on the rack there would have flat tires, misaligned wheels, loose stems, mismatched grips, grips put on upside down, mixed up seats and posts, but he didn't see anything wrong. He didn't own or ride a bike himself and knew nothing about bikes and it showed. Them having him assemble bikes was the equivalent of calling a plumber to fix your TV.
The big advantage to a shop bike in the low end market was both that an experienced bike guy put the thing together, and the fact that they had some parts support down the road. In later years, most department stores hired out for bike assemblers, one guy would drive around store to store and get paid to assemble bikes and various items for display or sale. Since they got paid per unit assembled, the results were often not much better as it didn't pay any extra to make adjustments, assembled just meant all the parts were attached to the bike, how well they were attached didn't much matter.

When it came to parts, that level of bike had a bit of an advantage in that parts were very universal. Most all used Wald stems, bars, kickstands, etc., the saddles were generic, usually from Messinger or Troxel, and the hubs were out sourced and always from a major maker.
There was no high or low end when it came to that type of bike, just different models with different paint schemes.
Frames were all pretty much on par, nearly all used lugless, electro welded frames with spot welded dropouts. Some were better done than others, often it was luck of the draw. I've seen as many Columbia and Ross dropouts come loose as I have Huffy and Murray.

I think that the recent closing of so many Sears stores has uncovered quite a few old bikes that got lost in store rooms over the years. There's been a half dozen or so new old stock and minty clean assembled Sears bikes for sale lately around here too. A quick search shows at least two that fit that bill in the NJ and PA areas. Older folks also would buy bikes like that and never use them, many are likely still hanging right where they were put 40 years ago, never touched again after the first ride or two.

I think if assembled with some care they'd be fine bikes for the average user but as mentioned above, they will likely need to be regreased and lubed properly after such a long sleep in their original boxes.

anotherbike

I wouldn't worry much about 40 year old grease, the last few older Murray built bikes I worked on didn't have any grease in any of the bearings, they were bone dry, no oil, no grease. Funny thing is they rode just fine. Both were super clean garage kept bikes that likely never saw any use. I guess the thought was that if it wore out faster they'd sell them the next bike sooner, and I suppose with no grease, there was nothing to dry out.
Other than the lack of lube though they weren't that bad, at least on par with the other American bikes at that time. I cleaned and packed the bearings and sent them on their way. They had basically the same type of headset and bb as the average Schwinn or any other American bike. Nothing great but nothing too terrible either. From what I've seen, out of the department store brands, the Sears and Murray bikes were the better choice most of the time. the frames tended to be a bit better made and better aligned. The wheels were a step up from say a Huffy or Iverson and on occasion you got name brand rims too.

dirtman

It doesn't make much difference now I guess, I called the seller last night after work and he told me he sold every last bike he had to some guy from NYC. He was supposedly saving me at least one three speed but he let them all go.

I've run across a few cheaper bikes that didn't have any grease in the bearings too, everyone was a bike that had survived the years pretty much untouched by time, so all they needed was a quick cleaning and some grease to be 100%.
Its also not that expensive to toss in a new pair of bearing cups and retainers to make an old bike right. Most of these bikes are using regular Wald parts which are cheap and plentiful. (I bought a few boxes of Wald headsets, front axle kits, and bottom brackets a few years ago for cheap at a flea market, I think I have a few dozen of each downstairs, so bearings don't worry me much. I even have a few new old stock Schwinn sets just in case I run across a clean Schwinn.

I don't mind doing a bit of work but I don't want to deal with a rusty mess that's sat for decades in someone's back yard or wet basement. Rust is the big issue here, its super rare to find a bike that's not rusted to some degree, even those that were stored inside sometimes. I happened on a guy in north Jersey a couple of years ago, he had a huge collection of old bikes and model air planes. His house was from the late 1800's, the garage was an old stone building roughly 30x50ft but it sat backed up to an creek. He was in his 80's and had let things go for a lot of years, and my guess was that either the humidity from the nearby water, or just the fact the place had no ventilation allowed most of the bikes to develop a layer of rust on all the chrome and bare metal. Most were likely new when put in there but they were left to rot for years. Tires went flat, rims picked up moisture from the concrete and rusted, dust settled on everything, rodents got in and ate soft items like saddles and cardboard boxes on the shelves, and the tires turned to mush where they sat flat. Very few of the bikes were savable in complete form, a few framesets survived or at least well enough that they could be polished up and made decent again, painted items did better than chrome.
Rodents ate the model air planes, they chewed on everything that they got hold of, what they didn't chew on they urinated on and caused acidic rust. Even parts that were new in the box were mostly damaged this way.
My guess was that the place had been locked up in the 70's and left untouched till he decided to move into a nursing home. For what ever reason he had just locked the place up and never went back inside for 40+ years.

I did salvage a few items from there but not much, most was just too far gone. Most went to the dump. A buddy took a few of the model air planes for parts or nostalgia but he said most were too old or had too much damage to be used as is.

I did a quick search on CL and found a few clean American three speeds there but nothing brand new like the two I missed. Oddly enough there's more English bikes than American bikes for cheap right now, but I was after cheap summer loaners that would be cheap and easy to maintain, and not be a high theft risk over the summer, not old English project bikes. I've got plenty of those already.

2old

Luckily not the same in dry (too, too dry) socal. I picked up a 1984 Schwinn Mesa Runner (bottom of the barrel bike then) that appeared to have been left in a garage unused for its life and the parts were pristine after removing the dust and polishing them. Then, since the frame was too large for my granddaughter, transferred the parts to the right-size frame. Sorry to drag out this picture again, but this is how it looked while awaiting new grips.

Axeman88

For quite a few years, a Free Spirit 3 speed was my utility bike. I don't remember where I got it, but I'm sure I paid less than $25 for it. It had been neglected for years but the red or burgundy paint blended well with the developing surface rust.

I considered that bike to be the perfect Chicago city bike, and added a rack and folding rear side basket.
- The 3 speed Shimano coast brake hub was reliable, indexed well and shifted quite reliably.
- A coaster brake is all that I require in our flatland environment. The front caliper was there for backup, if I dropped the chain, but never called on, except for the occasional emergency.
- With it's bedraggled appearance and frumpy "grampa" aesthetic, the bike was essentially theft proof. Inverting it outside a store, to prevent a thief's quick getaway, was enough to protect it back then. Now the desirability of this style has increased, and I'd worry about components being stripped. I never locked it at home, and it lived out in the backyard.

I still have the Free Spirit, and with new tires and a going over, it can return to service. Nowadays, the "patina" look is still going strong. I've seen cars and motorcycles with clear coat over red rust. I personally use a phosphoric acid product to convert red rust to gray iron phosphate, and live with the resulting appearance. I've been waxing over that, but I saw a video where a restorer used what they called a "oily rag restoration", coating over the old paint and converted rust with boiled linseed oil. What do folks think of this preservation method, or what other methods do folks have that don't involve repainting?

dirtman

I'd probably strip it down and soak the whole frame in Evapo-Rust, polish the remaining paint, clean it off with some paint prep or alcohol and give it a coat of clear to preserve it.
I'm not into having things look rusty or neglected, and rust certainly isn't good for the frame.
The same goes for the fenders and such, I've gotten into the habit of pulling the fenders off and cleaning any rust from underneath as well, then coating the underside with a suitable paint or sometimes truck bed liner to preserve them. Rust left unchecked will no doubt progress until it creates a larger issue, especially on a bike that sees a lot of wet weather use or simply a lot of time sitting outdoors.
Years ago I rode my bike everywhere, rain or shine, but if it got wet, it got cleaned up soon after.
I also like to rust proof the inside of the frames with Fluid Film or similar coating.

I spotted this one on CL tonight: https://southjersey.craigslist.org/b...343144409.html

Its not new in the box but its super clean.
I think part of the problem with these bikes is that most who bought them didn't value them and they got treated as throw away bikes. Looking back at these today, I don't see where they were any different than the average Rollfast or Columbia bike of that period. In fact, I think they may have a bit of an advantage in that they continued to be American made for longer than most others.
They're never going to be collectible but I think they were a good solid bike for transportation for the money. They were a far cry better than the Chinese junk we see now.
These bikes were built with an American made frame, American made Wald chrome parts, and a Shimano rear hub.
The last department store bike I saw had some unknown brand rear hub, unbranded rims, plastic shifters, no fenders, and paint vs chrome on the cranks and bars. What we see now are bikes built to a price point for maximum profits and even so they're still over $250 now.
I suppose in the 1980's a new Sears bike was likely under $100 but in today's money, and in comparison with what's available new, I feel many older and overlooked bikes are real deal these days.
My current go to bike is an early 70's single speed Rollfast lightweight, but since it belonged to my father, I really don't care to risk it getting stolen, so I'll likely buy something older and clean that I don't care about for utility use or wet weather use.
An old Huffy, Murray, or Free Spirit will likely be what I buy.

Axeman88

That bike in Vineland looks very nice cosmetically, and a 22" frame is quite rare. If I saw that locally, I'd be very tempted, for the large frame alone. I'm 6'1" , and generally content myself with 20" and 21", and long seat posts, because I just don't find the larger frames. The only thing that appears to be missing is the front caliper, mine had one and I believe they came from the factory that way. Good insurance, in the event of a chain drop, one still has brakes.

My current main commuter bike is an english made Huffy Sportsman, with a Sturmey Archer AW hub. I think it's from the late 60's, possibly early 70's. I also have a '71 single speed Schwinn Speedster, which is a sweet riding bicycle.

It took me decades to figure it out, during which time I rode derailleur bikes with drop bars, Mountain bikes, and cruisers, but eventually I came back to the bike I started with, a 3 speed lightweight. This type is, for me, the most practical for use as transportation. I can ride in my street clothes and not have to worry about getting my pants filthy. I can deal with the few small hills and take advantage of a tail wind. I can actually make my 5.6 mile commute to my job in LESS time, on average, than it takes me to drive my car, for various reasons having to do with traffic regulation and alternative paths available to the bicycle but not to the car.

At this point, I'm interested in going further in this direction. I'd like to acquire a true European Roadster type bicycle, with a fully enclosed chain drive and rod brakes. These seem to be very rare in the USA, most of what was imported here were "sports" models, with top chain guards only, and cable brakes. But It seems like I can build what I want. The parts are available from vendors in places like the Netherlands.