# 1966 Coppertone Stingray



## bikemonkey (May 18, 2018)

A gentleman rolled this into the shop yesterday. He bought it 10 years ago and it has been stored since without being touched. He saw some vintage bikes in our store window last week and thought it was time to get his bike was cleaned up. He had no idea of the value beyond it was a Schwinn with a banana seat (he does now).

After my heart quit pounding, I briefly went through his bike with him and as far as I can tell it is original except the rubber and it is missing the front fender. The seat is soft and has no rips! All of the hardware is in place but the chainring has me puzzled. Am I correct in thinking it is a transitional chainring that was replaced and standardized in '67 with the new Mag sprocket?

The serial number *B421XX* on the left rear dropout is also odd. There is no weak under struck letter - all letters/numbers are strongly stamped. I am thinking it is an early '66 that maybe falls close to the 1966 serial number "glitch" as noted in the SN database on here and maybe now extends it. Note the xx is my way of keeping the actual SN off the 'net - thanks to Shawn/VR for that consideration.

I would appreciate insights as to originality and SN glitch frame build date. I will be deep cleaning this one and if someone has a front fender laying about, please feel free to PM me.

















Snip from CABE Schwinn SN database.




1966 catalog snip - note the crazy chainring.


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## 1966fastbacks (May 18, 2018)

Yummy, I want that bike.


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## 67Ramshorn (May 18, 2018)

The Sprint sprocket is correct for a 1966 Fastback. The early Fastbacks did not have a slik on the back but both front and rear tires were the same. The serial number starts out with 2 letters, I can't read the first letter. But B is correct for 1966. The front fender should be a razor edge.


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## bikemonkey (May 18, 2018)

67Ramshorn said:


> The Sprint sprocket is correct for a 1966 Fastback. The early Fastbacks did not have a slik on the back but both front and rear tires were the same. The serial number starts out with 2 letters, I can't read the first letter. But B is correct for 1966. The front fender should be a razor edge.



Thanks for the reply and help on tire, chainwheel and fender!

There is no first letter in the serial number as Schwinn screwed it up for the month of January 1966. Those serial numbers only had one letter stamped.


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## GTs58 (May 18, 2018)

First year Fastback had that chain ring. Catalog ring was never used. There was a mess up on the first of the year 66 serial number stampings and after buying a nice 66 Varsity with that mishap, I tried to find out what the heck happened. Still don't know. Seems the B on the Fastback is in a different location than mine. B?121 and yours is ?B421. Must have moved the only B stamping die to the other empty slot.  _He Boss! Were still waiting for our other letter B stamping die!_


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## GenuineRides (May 19, 2018)

That is a legit ‘66!  There are a couple of other ways to narrow the month down, the hubs are also date coded with month and year digits, plus the front fork inside by the drop outs should have a single digit month stamp and a last digit year stamp with a plus between them, like 4 + 6 for April 1966.  Now remember these were put together on an assembly line so depending upon what bin they pulled the part from might relate more to when that specific part was made, but not when that bike rolled out of assembly.


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