Barn Find of the DECADE (in my opinion)

So a very good hot rodder friend of mine for the past 15 years hits me up and sends me a photo of a bike asking if its worth anything? You know the story, usually its a 60's or 70's middleweight or lightweight schwinn garbage. So i open the photo and nearly had a seizure!! He works in the Bay Area about an hour away from me, tells me his work is cleaning house. In the back corner of the warehouse is this......he finds out its a coworker of his. Most of the employees there ride bikes back and forth in the warehouse because the building is an old airplane hanger. So he asks the coworker whats up with the bike? He responds that he found it while cleaning out a garage in Oakland quite a few years ago for an estate sale. He took the bike to work and decided to use it as transportation from one end of the warehouse to the other. His job position changed at the business so the bike just sat there collecting dust and the tires went flat.

So low and behold, my buddy stumbles on it, makes a deal, and the bike is now mine. All of this happened within 24 hours. Now its in my living room with the a/c blowing on it and slowly enjoying life again. The bike will slowly get disassembled and cleaned and polished back up, all the chrome will get waxed, etc.. The only changes that will take place is the tires, grips, pedals and add the missing taillight. I have repop elgin grips but would love to find mercury embossed ones, tires, im not sure yet. What was original? I have some decent snakebellys and some blackwall chain treads... and the pedals are mismatched. One is a torrington 8, the other is a meteor.

So i know its not a $14,500 schwinn auto cycle, but in my opinion, a much rarer bike in incredible all original condition. Surprisingly the aluminum fenders are pretty nice overall. No rips or tears.

Congrads to you slick. A great bike, one of my top ten bucket list bikes. Great story too. Rob.

Congratulations, what a great score.......You make me sick slick

That's incredible. Beautiful bike!

Damn you! and congrats

I bow my head to you sir, you have indeed found a find of the century. congratulation!

Nick.

So i have lots of questions on these Pacemakers. First off, how many fully deluxe ones are out there with everything chrome and aluminum fenders?

Why were they called the World's Fair bike? Were these fully optioned ones like this only available at the fair or could they be ordered everywhere?

Oh and unless you are offering a 4 bedroom 3 bath house in the Upper Haight St. district of San Francisco with a 5 car garage.....the bike is not, and will not be for sale EVER. It means more to me since it came from Oakland originally where i grew up. I just want the original owner to be looking down on me and rest assured i will cherish his bike just as much, if not more then he did. One day my kids will own it.

I just looked at it again....F'ing ridiculous! You're the man!

Nice! I'm excited to see the cleanup pictures

To my knowledge I have only seen 3 original paint black on aluminum models and (now) I have seen 2 red on aluminum models. as far as rarity you could not hit a higher spot on the mercury side of collecting imo. from doing some digging i think this was originally the style shown at the worlds fair in 1939 but you could order the lower models for cheaper but not many of this style sold.

Nick.