# Phantom Reference Thread



## Freqman1 (Dec 27, 2018)

Love'm or hate'm the Schwinn Phantom is probably the most well known classic bike. The purpose of this thread is to share your knowledge of what "right" looks like when it comes to Phantoms. This is not a "Show Us Your Phantoms" thread because one already exists. This is to help those considering the purchase of a Phantom or just wanting to know more about what is correct for the given year learn what they should be looking for. Pics of repo parts for reference showing the 'tell' is encouraged. For instance showing an original and repo fender and pointing out the differences in the repo.

History:  A lot of debate exists as to whether the Phantom was introduced as a 1949 model or a 1950 model. What is known is that the Phantom was introduced about the first week of Sep 1949. The red and green bikes were introduced shortly thereafter and by Christmas of 1950 you could have any of the three colors. There is some variety on the early Phantoms such as either a no rivet, Phantom style seat or Mesinger B1, no guard decal, and a Wald reflector is found on some early bikes.

The girls model was a one year only (1955) and was available in black, red, green, and blue. These colors were available the entire year so despite the story sometimes circulated of the blue being a Christmas only color it was available from the beginning. There was also a 24" boys model offered in 1953 and 1954 which was available in black, red, and green. While debated it appears that there were at least a few (some say 50) blue boys (26") Phantoms produced. The legend says that these were Christmas bikes. The only example I have ever seen surfaced on EBay in 2009. It was found at a car show in PA (Hershey?) by a picker and was about a condition 5 or 6 as found. I was the under bidder and tried for two years to find out where it went but the most I could get out of the seller was that it went to California. I only wish I had got the serial to see if this supported the Christmas story.

The Phantoms from 1949/50-1953 were solid colors. The Opalescent red and green were introduced in 1954 and in 1959 these changed to the Radiant paint which is a little brighter. Even before the change to the Opalescent colors in '54 the Phantom started losing some of its standard accessories and instead these became options you had to purchase separately. In the mid '50s both the chainring and fork were changed. The last year, 1959, Phantoms were much different than their predecessors. Besides the switch to Radiant green and red the seat was changed to a tan vinyl seat which except for color was the same used on the later Cycle Trucks, Wasp, and Heavy Duty. All decals on a '59 are different as well as the pedals being changed to the bow type found on the middleweights and the rear brake is usually a Mark IV.

Lastly I would like to address restored Phantoms. Unlike cars the serial number on a bike tells you very little. A person can build a Phantom using a balloon tire cantiIever frame from the appropriate time frame. Unless the bike was documented as a Phantom before it was restored there is no way to positively identify a restored bike as a genuine Phantom. I look forward to your posts and a civil exchange of knowledge and ideas concerning these bikes. V/r Shawn


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## Freqman1 (Dec 27, 2018)

Frame pat'd decal--The Phantom, except for maybe '59, had the 2151533 decal. My '59 has no decal. V/r Shawn


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## Freqman1 (Dec 27, 2018)

New Departure Brakes. My Dec '49 bike has the stamped shell of the prewar bikes with the oil port. My '54 and '56 bikes have plain hub shells without oil port but same arm. Rear cog on '49 and '54 bikes is 22T with the spoke notch. V/r Shawn


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## Jeff54 (Dec 28, 2018)

Another important difference occurring 1954-55 is the old and new style Springer fork without a lock . Albeit, there's a few 55-6 that have an Old Style Springer as, the locking crown was still an option or upgrade.  And that, this new style was used until some time in the early 70's and reintroduced about 1980. However the 80's and later difference was in part# 2802, Fork Crown. Rather than being solid, as shown in parts list, the crown's pivot tubes are welded to it.

Also very important is that; the Phantom front fenders for old and new springers  are not interchangeable.  One could get a repop fender for old style but no repops, at least that I've ever seen, for new style Phantom Springer fork. You would need to drill a new hole in fender or create a home made adaptor to mount on the 'New Style' Springer. There is no current information as to whether Schwinn made an adaptor to retrofit either; the old to new or visa versa.


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## spoker (Dec 28, 2018)

dont know if this copied or not but a guy has a video of the newer schwinn with the chrome fender and self contained headlitehttps://youtu.be/03NP3iZ4C_0 some of these came with leftover 95 phantom frames


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## oldmtrcyc (Dec 28, 2018)

Thanks for the great info!


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## spoker (Dec 28, 2018)

part number 2935, there ate 2 different parts,the angle of the bend is diff for old style and new style springer,one of the reasons for the different fenders and mounting point,the newer springer has a piece hanging straight gown to mount the fender,the older style has an offset type of moutin tab,hence different hole locations in the fender,so there are 2 types of front fenders for the new style springer,one has the original type headlite,the other is shorter in the front and takes the self contained plastic light that sits on top of the fender[no cutout]the plastic lite does not fit older fenders,the new type fender has a different radius,i have 2 sets of these fenders and lites,the schwinn reps were giving them away when they were discontinude,the rear fits on an older balloon frame but needs some trimming at the bottom by the chain guard


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## spoker (Dec 28, 2018)

there is a phantom on ebay with serial g518xxx,dec 11 1950,so is that supose 2b a 51?is listed in the craigslist etc thread on this site


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## Freqman1 (Dec 28, 2018)

Boys Phantom Seats:  There are only four different seats found on the boys Phantoms. The very early bikes (late 1949-1950) are found with either a Mesinger B1 non-sliding rail seat (uncommon) or the Phantom 'no-rivet' seat. From 1951-1958 Phantoms were equipped with the Phantom 'rivet' seat. For the last year (1959) Schwinn used a tan vinyl Mesinger seat. I have never seen the tan seat legitimately used on any other year and never the black vinyl seat as found on Wasps, Cycle Trucks, and Heavy Dutys. All seats except the '59 seat were genuine leather with semi-gloss pans and chrome beehive springs. The seat used on the Anniversary Phantoms is almost an exact copy of the Phantom 'rivet' seat. Another feature I found on both my late '49 and '54 seats was that the nut used to tighten the seat to the post is 11/16", the '59 seat nut is 5/8", and the repo (Anniversary) seat is 9/16" nut. I'd be interested to hear from owners of '55-58 bikes to see what size the nuts are on these. I suspect at some point these may have went to 5/8" as well. The following posts will illustrate the characteristics and differences of these seats.

Late 1949-1950 Mesinger B1 non-sliding rail seat








Late 1949-1950 Phantom 'no-rivet' seat








1951-1958 Phantom 'rivet' seat (missing wear tab)




1959 tan vinyl seat








There are differences between the no-rivet and rivet seat pans. The punctures on the pans are different. The no-rivet seat has three punctures while the rivet seat, to include the repo seat, have six punctures as shown in my diagram and an example of a 'puncture' shown on the back of a rivet seat.








The chassis rivets differ between the no-rivet, rivet, and repo seats. There are at least two styles of rivets found on no-rivet seats.

Late 1949 chassis rivets on no-rivet seat




Unknown year no rivet seat




1951-1958 rivet seat




Reproduction Anniversary Seat (1995)




The springs are the same for both the no-rivet and rivet seats but are different than the Anniversary seat. The originals have more coils on the top than the Anniversary seat

Late 1949-1958 seat spring




Anniversary seat spring--Also notice the "PERMACO" sticker which is a sure fire indicator of a repo (Anniversary) seat




The seat tab inscription is slightly different between original and repo seats. The seat rivets between the original and repo both measure 8mm but the repo appear to be a little flatter that the originals which have a slight dome (not shown)

Original tab




Repo tab




Lastly the chassis rails on the original seats do not have any markings. The repo seat is marked "Mesinger Made in USA" in a box. I'd be interested to hear from owners of '55-'58 Phantoms if any original seats have this marking.

Original




Repo








V/r Shawn


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## SJ_BIKER (Dec 28, 2018)

Freqman1 said:


> Boys Phantom Seats:  There are only four different seats found on the boys Phantoms. The very early bikes (late 1949-1950) are found with either a Mesinger B1 non-sliding rail seat (uncommon) or the Phantom 'no-rivet' seat. From 1951-1958 Phantoms were equipped with the Phantom 'rivet' seat. For the last year (1959) Schwinn used a tan vinyl Mesinger seat. I have never seen the tan seat legitimately used on any other year and never the black vinyl seat as found on Wasps, Cycle Trucks, and Heavy Dutys. All seats except the '59 seat were genuine leather with semi-gloss pans and chrome beehive springs. The seat used on the Anniversary Phantoms is almost an exact copy of the Phantom 'rivet' seat. Another feature I found on both my late '49 and '54 seats was that the nut used to tighten the seat to the post is 11/16", the '59 seat nut is 5/8", and the repo (Anniversary) seat is 9/16" nut. I'd be interested to hear from owners of '55-58 bikes to see what size the nuts are on these. I suspect at some point these may have went to 5/8" as well. The following posts will illustrate the characteristics and differences of these seats.
> 
> Late 1949-1950 Mesinger B1 non-sliding rail seat
> View attachment 925667
> ...



Literature i  found shows non riveted saddles later than 1950 and who knows whats going on with the scripted tank decals.


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## SJ_BIKER (Dec 28, 2018)

Close up


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## SJ_BIKER (Dec 28, 2018)

Tank decal...when were they scripted?


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## Freqman1 (Dec 28, 2018)

The problem with the catalogs is that they recycled illustrations, sometimes, for years. I'd like to see pics of original bikes later than '50 with that seat--or decal. V/r Shawn


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## GTs58 (Dec 28, 2018)

Oh boy..........   Catalog images are known to be wrong in many, no wait, make that hundreds of cases.


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## rustjunkie (Dec 29, 2018)

there’s a bunch of DeLuxe Phantom type saddles here, unfortunately none came this way on bikes.
some things i’ve noticed:

some no rivet saddles are different at the nose, not folded over. i'll guess that early no-rivets are not folded over.

no rivet:




rivet:




springs were chrome, zinc, and painted:





some chassis/frames were stamped Mesinger, some weren’t. there’s at least one no-rivet here that is not.















the front spring bolt and rear rods were zinc plated, as were some side plates. There's one set of zinc plates here that are not marked schwinn approved, from a no-rivet straight-nose.
the holes punched in the pans were to hold the pad in place.
many different types of pads were used: sponge rubber like carpet padding, black sponge rubber, and a 2-ply foam.


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## rustjunkie (Dec 29, 2018)

this is the most unusual i’ve seen, from a no-rivet saddle







Leather was directly over padding, no fabric layer as (most) other Mesingers.
As always, no glue on top, but inside edge (always? sometimes?) glued to pan.
The paint on pans looks pretty glossy on the good originals i've seen, although paint is thin, directly over metal, no primer.


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## cyclingday (Dec 29, 2018)

Good stuff here.
Thanks, for getting this going, Shawn.
This is the original saddle on my 49 B6 and may have also been the type equipped on the introductory Phantom's.


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## spoker (Dec 29, 2018)

multitiple vendors meeting enginering specs but maby not identical looking,i spent a lot of time with a large mfg,usually one vender could not meet the supply demands,all these pics tell me is there were alot of little variations


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## atencioee (Dec 29, 2018)

Thanks for all the info!!!


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## Freqman1 (Dec 30, 2018)

cyclingday said:


> Good stuff here.
> Thanks, for getting this going, Shawn.
> This is the original saddle on my 49 B6 and may have also been the type equipped on the introductory Phantom's.View attachment 925878




Thanks for posting this seat Marty. It is a lot better than the POS I posted but it was all I had. A huge thanks to Scott for his contribution which clears up some of the questions I had. Here are a couple better pics he provided of the B1 seat. V/r Shawn


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## Schirwin (Jan 4, 2019)

Anybody have any reference for good placement on a deluxe script reflector? Looking to add one on my 54 black phantom.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## atencioee (Feb 24, 2019)

Can anyone tell me which years did the Phantom tail lights have the metal lever and which years did they have the plastic switch?


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## blincoe (Feb 24, 2019)

I would say 1949-1952 metal lever

1952-1955 plastic switch

@atencioee


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## GTs58 (Feb 24, 2019)

As I said earlier, I would guess the plastic switch was incorporated when the new middleweight Jag using that light was introduced in late 1956.  Check out the Phantoms in this tread, the 55's have the metal lever except for Chris's, but is that one original.  https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/show-us-your-phantoms.13149/page-5#post-599667

Said to be a 56. Maybe a 57 model with late 56 serial number?  Original? Can't say.


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## Flashback Vintage Cycles (Mar 8, 2019)

Ok, I have a question about the taillight on the Phantom. When was the type with the wire lead that goes down to the sprocket, with the "C" shaped wire with the brass bullet shaped piece that goes on a ND rear hub with a groove in it. There was another piece that went on the axle, when you back pedaled, it made the connection and the brake light came on. I've seen (and had) a 1996 repop and i've seen original parts i believe made by Delta. The other version was the one with the bearing that slid forward making the connection and turning the brake light on. What were the years that the different ones were used. BTW i'm looking for the repop 1996 version i described if you have one. 
Tim


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## vincev (Mar 9, 2019)

I like Phantoms.As a beginner collector in 1980 that was the bike to fiind for me. Still would like to find a green one. Like tm or hate em I still think many collectors want em.


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## Freqman1 (Sep 26, 2019)

So there have been some posts concerning what is the correct tire for a Phantom. I suppose the answer really depends on the year. Most folks wrongly assume the Schwinn Typhoon Cords are the only tire that ever came on Phantoms. Below is an ad from early 1950 calling out US Royal Masters as the tires on the new Phantoms. When I got my Dec '49 green Phantom it had the original Royal Masters but they were just too far gone to save. I believe I have also seen literature that calls out Goodyears as well but not sure whether these are Airwheels or another model of tire.

From what I know the Schwinn Typhoon Cord was introduced in 1941. Interestingly they were used on the lower tier model bikes and not the Autocycles which I believe used US Royal Centipede Grip tires (1940-1?). I believe the confusion comes in when reading the Fair Trade Sheets from the early 50s' which identify the tires as "Cord Balloon" or something similar. I don't believe this is referring to the Typhoon Cord tires. Starting in 1953 the Fair Trade Sheet calls out Typhoon Cords by name.

I'd be interested to hear others thoughts on this subject. V/r Shawn


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## schwinnderella (Sep 26, 2019)

May 1951 Schwinn Reporter


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## Freqman1 (Sep 26, 2019)

schwinnderella said:


> May 1951 Schwinn ReporterView attachment 1069584



I'm thinking the reference to "Royal" likely applies to the badge and not tires? It is also interesting to note the exact date the Phantom became available. The earliest ad I could find was the first week of Sep '49. I would classify this as a mid-year model but obviously 1949 is the introductory year for the bike. V/r Shawn


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## schwinnderella (Sep 26, 2019)

May 1952 Schwinn Reporter


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## Freqman1 (Sep 26, 2019)

schwinnderella said:


> May 1952 Schwinn ReporterView attachment 1069652




That's interesting. It implies there was a time where whitewalls were not available. I have seen original bikes with black walls but always assumed they had been changed at some point. Great info--keep those 'nuggets' coming! V/r Shawn


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## schwinnderella (Sep 26, 2019)

I have never seen one of these helmets shown in the August, 1952 Schwinn Reporter.


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## Nashman (Sep 26, 2019)

schwinnderella said:


> I have never seen one of these helmets shown in the August, 1952 Schwinn Reporter.View attachment 1069802



COOL!!!!  Thanks for posting all this interesting stuff.


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## schwinnderella (Sep 28, 2019)

Confirming that at some period during the Korean War whitewalls were not available on Schwinns, this from the March, 1951 issue of The Schwinn Reporter.


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## Nashman (Sep 28, 2019)

schwinnderella said:


> Confirming that at some period during the Korean War whitewalls were not available on Schwinns, this from the March, 1951 issue of The Schwinn Reporter.
> View attachment 1070759



Right on.


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## jimbo53 (Oct 1, 2019)

Following. Thanks for the great info, Shawn.


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## cyclingday (Oct 1, 2019)

Lucky kid!


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## Uni-Bike Lou (Sep 20, 2022)

I know this is an older thread, but maybe we can bring it back. I think my question was answered by the @schwinnderella post.

Did Schwinn chrome the fender braces and seat post for the Phantom?


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## 39zep (Sep 20, 2022)

Christmas morning 1949. 
My Dad, Grandmother and Uncle. 
Dogs name was Frisky. 
Early seat reference. 
Upside down handlebars was apparently very cool.


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## SJ_BIKER (Sep 20, 2022)

Here is a 1958 for refernce


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## SJ_BIKER (Sep 20, 2022)

1959 appears to have chrome clamp and post but cad fender braces on this one


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## phantom (Sep 20, 2022)

SJ_BIKER said:


> 1959 appears to have chrome clamp and post but cad fender braces on this one
> 
> View attachment 1698922
> 
> View attachment 1698924



Is this your 59 ?


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## SJ_BIKER (Sep 20, 2022)

Not mine


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## atencioee (Sep 20, 2022)

Uni-Bike Lou said:


> I know this is an older thread, but maybe we can bring it back. I think my question was answered by the @schwinnderella post.
> 
> Did Schwinn chrome the fender braces and seat post for the Phantom?



I can't speak to the late phantoms 55-59 because I don't have any experience with those, but I know earlier Phantoms 49-54 had cad fender braces, cad seat posts, and cad seat post clamps. @bobcycles would know on the later Phantoms.
Also, perhaps someone who has an original later Phantom and who knows can speak up.


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## GTs58 (Sep 20, 2022)

atencioee said:


> I can't speak to the late phantoms 55-59 because I don't have any experience with those, but I know earlier Phantoms 49-54 had cad fender braces, cad seat posts, and cad seat post clamps. @bobcycles would know on the later Phantoms.
> Also, perhaps someone who has an original later Phantom and who knows can speak up.



From all the showing examples that I’ve seen and had, the 1962 models were the first Schwinns to have chrome fender braces, chrome seat post clamp, chrome seat post and chrome kickstand.


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## dasberger (Sep 20, 2022)

My '56... 

CAD braces, post and clamp
CAD Torrington A pedals
Red Schwinn teardrop grips
Mesinger Made in USA stamp on saddle chassis
BFG badged so OG tires/tubes were Silvertowns


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## Uni-Bike Lou (Sep 21, 2022)

Thanks for the info.


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## Uni-Bike Lou (Sep 21, 2022)

Here’s a tougher question. Are the bottom bracket bearings cups a little larger? Is the Schwinn print on the bearing cups a larger font?


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## Uni-Bike Lou (Sep 21, 2022)

The photo is from a 1952 Phantom.


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## Freqman1 (Sep 21, 2022)

Uni-Bike Lou said:


> Here’s a tougher question. Are the bottom bracket bearings cups a little larger? Is the Schwinn print on the bearing cups a larger font?
> 
> View attachment 1699114



Looks like the frame is primer? How do you know it was a Phantom?


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## Uni-Bike Lou (Sep 21, 2022)

Because I removed the paint. It was black when I got. I thought I could do an acid bath, but that doesn’t work on paint. As I was removing the paint I saw the paint design on the frame and Black Phantom on the chain guard. I didn’t have the patience to strip it.


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