# Krate fakes



## Grey Ghost (Dec 6, 2022)

How many fakes do you think are out there?

I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?

I know cotton pickers, grey ghosts and sunset orange krates were just one year, but other than those, what are the hardest to find krates? I seem to see a lot of pea pickers and lemon peelers, not so many orange and apples.

Any estimates of how many of these, not including barn finds, are really left?
Do you think there are still many around and people just aren’t willing to part with the real ones anymore?

Thoughts?


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## 60sstuff (Dec 6, 2022)

Grey Ghost said:


> How many fakes do you think are out there?
> 
> I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?
> 
> ...



Cotton Picker was a two year build.

Factory Original “Sunset” Orange Krate.

CJ, one year paint on the last year of the Krates.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 6, 2022)

I know there are a lot of faked Krates, any Apple, Lemon or Pea Pickers are suspect because those were standard colors. I have seen frames selling like hotcakes for 15 years in these colors. Then there is a sudden shortage of Shock sissy bars, Krate Springers and Atom drum brake hubs/wheels.
Seats are understandable but the drum brake parts and forks are kind of obvious.
There are ways to tell the new forks and sissy bars from the originals.
I bet that accounting for damaged/destroyed bikes there are more Krates in the standard colors than 3 speed or 5 speed Stingrays. lots of extra 20" Stingray forks and standard seats left over as well as 20" S-7 wheels.


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## sab (Dec 6, 2022)

Or they are not a collector and they don't know how to sell the bike w/o the additional crap (risk) that goes along w/selling the bike (ebay cost, shipping, disassembly, proving it orginal, highest bidder).


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## dj rudy k (Dec 6, 2022)

No doubt and it started 25 + years ago However in the end the frames all were 20" and could any day be set up to be a Krate back in the day. Seen it being done at a shop in Joliet Il. back in 2001 . they were good new the bolts you would not tell


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## Olds442 (Dec 6, 2022)

Car collectors have been putting up with it for years.  All 442s are now W30.    All 57 Chevy Bel Airs have Tri Power. Watch the auctions.  Every Malibu is an SS.  Every hobby has these issues.   How about the poor suckers that spent millions on fake art.    But it is a fun topic.


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 6, 2022)

So, more “reconstructed” Stingrays than Krates? That makes sense. They would be easier to forge than Krates anyway.

I wondered why I see so many pea pickers for sale. Campus green was a very popular color in the late 60’s and early 70’s. They offered that color on Stingrays all the Krate years. That’s a lot of green Stingrays waiting to be “upgraded”. 

I remember seeing a lot of yellow stingrays too for the the few years that they offered that color.
Definitely fewer Orange krates for sale than the other 3 colors. I would guess that orange and red were the most popular krate tones so one would think that there would be more of those colors left than the green and yellow but their aren’t, at least not right now.

After doing so much work on my bike I can spot a mistake pretty easily. If it looks wrong, it probably is. While recovered seats and repop grips are acceptable. I have noticed that the poorest examples for sale don’t even bother to get these parts right. Things like proper bolts/nuts on the shock hangers are another thing altogether. Some of this stuff looks like a local hardware store purchase.

 The details make the difference. Asked me how I know.$$$

Not saying that most of these aren’t real Krates, just that some of these people are asking a lot of money for either poorly executed examples or copies.


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 6, 2022)

Olds442 said:


> Car collectors have been putting up with it for years.  All 442s are now W30.    All 57 Chevy Bel Airs have Tri Power. Watch the auctions.  Every Malibu is an SS.  Every hobby has these issues.   How about the poor suckers that spent millions on fake art.    But it is a fun topic.



The difference is that automobiles have a paper trail on their serial numbers that should tell the real story. If you get fooled because you didn’t do your homework it’s your fault because the code information is there on the vehicle. 
The Schwinn serial numbers don’t tell us a whole lot past the month/year built. And even that is debatable around here as you well know. As long as the paint corresponds to the year, you can claim authenticity, more or less.


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 6, 2022)

So, how many real Krates may be out there now? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000?

I don’t mean the ones rusting out in grandmas back yard, I mean restorable and/or restored examples. 
Any educated guesses?


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## 49autocycledeluxe (Dec 6, 2022)

Olds442 said:


> ..All 57 Chevy Bel Airs have Tri Power. Watch the auctions.  Every hobby has these issues.  But it is a fun topic.



Tri power was never a factory option on small block Chevrolets. only the '60's 427 Corvettes had it. fuel injection and 2 four barrels were options..... but not on the same motor 🙂


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 6, 2022)

Just thinking out loud here.
Wasn’t Schwinn bike production around 1,000,000 per year from 1969 to 1973?

If my math is correct, then if even 10% of these bikes were Krates, which is highly doubtful, and even 10% of those Krates survived, also doubtful, then their would be around 50,000 in existence today in one form or another.

If only 2-3% of bicycles produced in those years were Krates, the surviving numbers would be far lower.

Schwinn made a lot of standard plain vanilla bikes during that time. They weren’t all Stingrays.


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## Robert Troub (Dec 6, 2022)

Grey Ghost said:


> How many fakes do you think are out there?
> 
> I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?
> 
> ...



There is no way to know any numbers......lots of krates with incorrect parts, doesn't mean they are fakes......


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 6, 2022)

Robert Troub said:


> There is no way to know any numbers......lots of krates with incorrect parts, doesn't mean they are fakes......



Of course not.
I didn’t say all of them are, just that more look wrong than right.

I know how much money I have put into mine and it’s VERY correct compared to many of these more expensive, shoddy, examples.

I guess if you put something on one of the Internet markets and wait long enough somebody will eventually buy it whether it worth the asking price or not.

Or if it’s even real.


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## Olds442 (Dec 6, 2022)

I misspoke.  I meant fuel injection.  Half asleep.   On the 57 Chevy.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 6, 2022)

dj rudy k said:


> No doubt and it started 25 + years ago However in the end the frames all were 20" and could any day be set up to be a Krate back in the day. Seen it being done at a shop in Joliet Il. back in 2001 . they were good new the bolts you would not tell



Our Schwinn Dealer in the late 1980s to the mid 1990s was buying and rebuilding them. I had a Lemon Peeler but didn't want to sell it.
They had a stockpile of seats, forks and shifters.
Since they were a dealer their rebuilds were 100% correct.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 6, 2022)

Grey Ghost said:


> Of course not.
> I didn’t say all of them are, just that more look wrong than right.
> 
> I know how much money I have put into mine and it’s VERY correct compared to many of these more expensive, shoddy, examples.
> ...



Some of the bikes and parts I have seen make me want to scream. Drum brake wheel from a Columbia and I couldn't convince him it was wrong. Said it was like that when his dad bought it new in 1971.
Standard Stingray seats, wromg sissybars, and these were $2k plus bikes at the time.


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 7, 2022)

There is a pea picker on the bay right now that has a green colorline on the back.

THAT bike is authentic no doubt.

I’m so glad many of you told me not to repaint my Orange krate. (I did lightly touch it up though, nya, nya! ) Keeping the original paint, especially orange, assures myself, and any prospective buyers, that this is indeed the real deal.

Not knocking any of the gorgeous repaints I see on this forum. If the finish is really that bad go for it.
Had I not been able to save my paint, and restore it to a level that was acceptable to me, I probably would have re-shot the thing too.

When I bought my bike I knew just enough, mostly from memory, about Krates to be confident that it was real. The wrong parts like the SunTour derailleur, rear tire and seat stuck out. I wasn’t sure about the shifter because all I had remembered was the tall, straight sticks which came before and after the 69 benders. The seller told me that the design was one year only. It looked like it was welded to the bike(!) though, so I figured it was probably correct.

The paint was so oxidized that I knew it was original and no funny business there.

Had I found, and paid a lot more, for a shiny metallic pea or apple that was put together like some of the junk see online, I probably would be kicking myself right now.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 7, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> Some of the bikes and parts I have seen make me want to scream. Drum brake wheel from a Columbia and I couldn't convince him it was wrong. Said it was like that when his dad bought it new in 1971.
> Standard Stingray seats, wromg sissybars, and these were $2k plus bikes at the time.



I have not had a problem oversoaking, unlike with Phosphoric Acid.







Grey Ghost said:


> There is a pea picker on the bay right now that has a green colorline on the back.
> 
> THAT bike is authentic no doubt.
> 
> ...



I used to put Shimano Crane derailleurs on my bikes because they looked cool. I did not care about originality when I was 14.


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 7, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> I have not had a problem oversoaking, unlike with Phosphoric Acid.
> I used to put Shimano Crane derailleurs on my bikes because they looked cool. I did not care about originality when I was 14.



Cranes and Larks were awesome! Really more modern designs than the aging Hurets Schwinn was using. I thought they worked better too. Weren’t they the first slant parallelograms?


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 7, 2022)

They were among the first. I believe Suntour GT was the first, in 1964 Suntour invented the design and pantented it (per Sheldon Brown site). 
Suntour was the best at what they did until after that patent expired in 1984. By then they had laxed and Shimano has SIS in the works. Suntour did not respond fast enough and some designs had technical flaws that cost them market shares.
 By 1995 Suntour had stopped producing components and sold the name to SR, who never produced any older products in these lines.

Sounds like the Schwinn story doesnt it?
I must check to see if the third generation of the family had taken over yet.
That is what started killing Schwinn.


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## GhostlyOne (Dec 7, 2022)

49autocycledeluxe said:


> Tri power was never a factory option on small block Chevrolets. only the '60's 427 Corvettes had it. fuel injection and 2 four barrels were options..... but not on the same motor 🙂



Don't forget the 348 W motors.


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 7, 2022)

Yeah, I remember SunTour was always more expensive than Shimano, but still far less than Campy.
I never understood what justified the higher prices, seemed like Shimano was always neck and neck with them in technology and machining.

Huret and Simplex, sacre blue!, never seemed to be able to catch up. Simplex had some nice stuff but Huret had been a dinosaur as long as I could remember.

Campy was just expensive. I guess it was better than everything else but I frankly couldn’t tell much difference for the price. 

 I didn’t know SunTour invented SIS. 
It’s been a good system, but before it was developed we could index our own gears, on racing bikes, with as much precision, and much faster, with our hands on the levers due to muscle memory. I could pop the exact gear I wanted without even thinking about it. A good rider could even shift gears with their knees while climbing.

Brake lever shifting was a definite improvement though.

My only gripe against Shimano is that they never developed a Manhattan Project to drop the chain system and develop a belt drive. I guess they tried for a long time, to no avail.  But hey, Seiko took years perfecting Spring Drive. They never gave up and it finally succeeded.  
If anybody could have done it it was Shimano.

I am reading No Hands right now. 
Good book.
Sounds like many US companies, a bunch of big chief wannabes more concerned about power and position, (and partying), than being a fiduciary for the company. Sounds exactly like Detroit, or almost any company now.

 The book brings up an interesting point that I hadn’t thought of, that being the idea that Schwinn quality went downhill after 1973. Even as kids we used to remark how fit and finish wasn’t as good as it had been, and believe me, Shwinn F&F was in another league compared to AMF, Huffy, Murray and the rest. It just went downhill from there. By 1976 I was more interested in cars than bikes and definitely more interested in European bikes than the hopelessly antiquated Schwinn offerings, Paramount excluded.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 7, 2022)

If you go back to 1967, When Frank Jr took over one of the first things I saw happening was losing chrome on kickstands, seat clamps and other small parts. I guess kids wouldn't notice or care that silver Cadmium or zinc plating was not the same as chrome.
It took a while but more cost cutting including in R&D came when the bottom line became more important than the quality customers were used to.
Going out to feed the homeless cats, but later if you want I can explain my Third Generation company killers theory.


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## OC_Rolling_Art (Dec 7, 2022)

Olds442 said:


> Car collectors have been putting up with it for years.  All 442s are now W30.    All 57 Chevy Bel Airs have Tri Power. Watch the auctions.  Every Malibu is an SS.  Every hobby has these issues.   How about the poor suckers that spent millions on fake art.    But it is a fun topic.



In the car world, at least SOME say it's a tribute car; in the end, it has to be a numbers matching car with some docs to lend authenticity.


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## 60sstuff (Dec 7, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> If you go back to 1967, When Frank Jr took over one of the first things I saw happening was losing chrome on kickstands, seat clamps and other small parts. I guess kids wouldn't notice or care that silver Cadmium or zinc plating was not the same as chrome.



Not exactly ^^^

Many large US company’s, GM, Ford and Schwinn contributed to the war effort as this Schwinn Reporter explains.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 7, 2022)

OK, Here goes nothing.
Ignaz Schwinn was a great inventor and genius who started at the bottom and knew how to work hard.

He brought up his son Frank W. Schwinn the same way.  Frank Sr. was as smart as his father although I personally believe his inventive skills were a little overrated. Ask me about the Spring fork.

Perhaps his dad was hard on him, because there is no real mention of his son Frank V. Schwinn starting out at the factory sweeping floors. Perhaps this had some bearing on his way of running a business since he was probably handed life on a platter. He did not invent anything we heard of and made lots of money for not doing it.

We saw the results of that line of thinking, R&D suffered some, but the worst was yet to come. Under Frank V.'s reign the Stingray died to BMX and his solution was to build a Stingray with BMX handlebars. He had Skip Hess (of Mongoose fame) in his corner and dropped that ball too. Mountain Biking? Ditto. 

Meantime Frank V Schwinn raised a teenie weenie weenie of a son , Edward R. Schwinn.
When he took over the company one of his early moves was to move one of the last remaining marketing geniuses (whom he did not like much at all) Al Fritz, the father of the Stingray to a division building excersize bikes. Yeah, those things that cost too much, go absolutely nowhere and the most excersize a lot of them see is when the junk man throws them on a truck to be made into new Chinese bicycles.

We all know the rest of the story. Now our once proud Schwinn name has been pimped out to a variety of half assed tin foil and popsicle stick bicycle makers who, other than the 1995 Phantoms and the early re-release Krates were lucky to produce bicycles that were rideable when they left the department stores and certainly were not rideable by the next spring.

Well, there you go. My take on the History of Schwinn Bicycles.

Somebody tie me to the whipping post. I can see the line forming from here.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 7, 2022)

60sstuff said:


> Not exactly ^^^
> 
> Many large US company’s, GM, Ford and Schwinn contributed to the war effort as this Schwinn Reporter explains.
> 
> View attachment 1747013



I see that, but I also didn't notice near as much chrome loss on any cars then. Styling changes eliminated some certainly but there were no styling changes to eliminate chrome from seat clamps. not to mention many other bicycle manufacturers were still chroming whole frames into the 1970s and 1980s.
I do respect your info.
Rob


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## Krateboy (Dec 10, 2022)

Grey Ghost said:


> How many fakes do you think are out there?
> 
> I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?
> 
> ...



1972 Pea Picker also 1 year only


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## Tubender (Dec 10, 2022)

Grey Ghost said:


> How many fakes do you think are out there?
> 
> I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?
> 
> ...



I’m sorry but you require a vocabulary lesson:
hobble is to tie two legs on a horse together so he can’t run away 
cobble is to repair or assemble something in a haphazard manner


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 10, 2022)

Only because of disc brake.
A very cool bike even so.


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## Tubender (Dec 10, 2022)

Krateboy said:


> 1972 Pea Picker also 1 year only
> 
> View attachment 1748494
> 
> View attachment 1748495



One year for disc, not the color. You missed the point


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 10, 2022)

Tubender said:


> I’m sorry but you require a vocabulary lesson:
> hobble is to tie two legs on a horse together so he can’t run away
> cobble is to repair or assemble something in a haphazard manner



And you could use some diplomacy lessons. Have you never made a grammatical error even once?


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 10, 2022)

Tubender said:


> I’m sorry but you require a vocabulary lesson:
> hobble is to tie two legs on a horse together so he can’t run away
> cobble is to repair or assemble something in a haphazard manner



Thank you.
I would always rather be correct than “right”!


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## Tubender (Dec 10, 2022)

Oldbikeguy1960 said:


> And you could use some diplomacy lessons. Have you never made a grammatical error even once?



Yes, and I TRY to learn from those mistakes


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 10, 2022)

Tubender said:


> One year for disc, not the color. You missed the point



 Seven posts in over 2 years and you wasted two insulting other members.
I noticed the post on the Pea Picker and also mentioned the one year only point but I may have been more diplomatic.
None of us know everything, but some think they do.
Please if you want to join the crowd do so as the first kind of member, not the second. We have more than enough of those kind here.
Thanks, Rob


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 10, 2022)

Tubender said:


> Yes, and I TRY to learn from those mistakes



Here is your chance then.
Thanks, Rob


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 10, 2022)

Tubender said:


> Yes, and I TRY to learn from those mistakes



Me too.
But now you’re just being critical and mean.

Congratulations.


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## coasterbrakejunkie1969 (Dec 10, 2022)

A Cobbler is someone who makes shoes and a type of delicious dessert. A Cooper makes barrels. We are all learning today, some more graciously than others. @Grey Ghost I completely understood what you were asking. @Tubender R  E  L  A  X


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 10, 2022)

I like pie


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## Krateboy (Dec 10, 2022)

Tubender said:


> One year for disc, not the color. You missed the point



Sorry, I misunderstood.


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## Oldbikeguy1960 (Dec 10, 2022)

Krateboy said:


> Sorry, I misunderstood.



You were fine man. I understood you.


The responses to some members observations/comments pointed out something to me.
We have a Troll sighting here.


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## Tubender (Dec 10, 2022)

I’m sorry, I’m being an a hole,
I withdraw


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 10, 2022)

Now we return to our regularly scheduled program.


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## razinhellcustomz (Dec 10, 2022)

This is why I build up my own bikes and not buy anything sight unseen.. Gm stuff is the same way, all if not most is all Fake junk...


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## Sportyworty (Dec 12, 2022)

I bought myself a new 1998-1999 Schwinn reissue Orange Krate in the box for Christmas. This thread and others gave me the confidence to pony up the 400 ask quickly. I have an Orange Raptor and Orange 68 Cobra Jet Cougar so it had to happen and didn’t have time to bone up on all things genuine Krate. It’ll be a stand in until I replace with a  viable restoration candidate. Great work on your first restoration Grey Ghost. The attention to detail has payed off in a big way, now enjoy as it has some of your DNA.
I can provide details or photos soon to compare to the genuine article and or other later issued bikes.


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## kingsting (Dec 12, 2022)

This thread reminded me of some kind of dumb things we did in the early 90's. One was turning standard five speed Sting Rays into Krates. I sold a beautiful original 71 campus green five speed to a buddy that made it into a Pea. Since then I've had a lot of Pea Pickers come through my collection but that was the only green five speed. Original five speeds just don't come along as often as Krates.
There was a guy that used to take Manta Ray saddles apart to recover Krate saddles. They looked pretty good although the "S" was off a little. Nowadays nice Manta saddles are hen's teeth. Looking back, that may have not been the best idea...


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## Grey Ghost (Dec 12, 2022)

Sportyworty said:


> I bought myself a new 1998-1999 Schwinn reissue Orange Krate in the box for Christmas. This thread and others gave me the confidence to pony up the 400 ask quickly. I have an Orange Raptor and Orange 68 Cobra Jet Cougar so it had to happen and didn’t have time to bone up on all things genuine Krate. It’ll be a stand in until I replace with a  viable restoration candidate. Great work on your first restoration Grey Ghost. The attention to detail has payed off in a big way, now enjoy as it has some of your DNA.
> I can provide details or photos soon to compare to the genuine article and or other later issued bikes.



I seriously considered buying one of those reissues and sticking a stick shifter on it just for the look.
When I found out how much shifters were going for I decided to skip that idea and just pony up for the real deal.

I still kind of wish I had bought one of those 98-99’s just to practice wheelies on.

Do post some pics of your new and old krates for comparison, that would be neat.

I will post photos of my Krate at the big Christmas morning surprise thread which is not yet posted because I don’t know what I’m getting for Christmas this year....wink, wink

It looks even better now. I cleaned it up more and added some personal touches.

Thanks for the complements and encouragement.

So, you have a nitty, gritty kitty eh? Wow, not many of those around!


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## Sportyworty (Dec 12, 2022)

Still playing with my sweet 16 set and some larger versions too

I want to practice some big slides and wheelies as well. Look out neighbors !
Hope to find my bike as a kid too and restore it identically. We are big kids now and can do whatever we %#^*# please


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## nick tures (Dec 12, 2022)

Sportyworty said:


> Still playing with my sweet 16 set and some larger versions too
> 
> I want to practice some big slides and wheelies as well. Look out neighbors !
> Hope to find my bike as a kid too and restore it identically. We are big kids now and can do whatever we %#^*# please




nice car dont see cougars much !!


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## Sportyworty (Dec 17, 2022)

4 hours of detailing and the bike looks pretty sharp ! They literally deteriorate in the box but you guys knew that. Going to assemble and roll it over to the Christmas tree.


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## GTs58 (Dec 17, 2022)

Sportyworty said:


> 4 hours of detailing and the bike looks pretty sharp ! They literally deteriorate in the box but you guys knew that. Going to assemble and roll it over to the Christmas tree.
> 
> View attachment 1752874
> 
> View attachment 1752875




That's for sure! Those top tube stickers literally dry out and crumble. Just a careful wipe down makes them disappear. Hopefully Bicyclebones will have reproductions of those stickers made.  😜  That appears to be very nicely done remake.


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