Just a thought, maybe I'm not describing the original color correctly, the later Flamboyant red is more of a bright, medium red that resembles the color of red anodized aluminum, its very close in color shade to a SnapOn MagLite I've got in red.
The original paint was more of a Cranberry or blood red, also over a silver base. I had a late 40's Schwinn New World just prior to that bike and it was painted pretty much the same color. When I got both of those bikes, less than half the paint was intact. I never repainted the New World because I didn't want to make it more attractive to thieves back then, I left it old and rusty looking the whole time I had it. It and about 5 other bikes got run over while in a bike rack one day at school. A guy trying to back a trailer down between two buildings backed right over the whole rack of bikes.
There's also the possibility that the bike had parts changed long before I had it, I got it in the late 60's, and was at least the fourth owner of it. The original owner, a kid who was already out of school by the time I was even starting school as a little kid, had it first and delivered papers on it for several years, then it got passed with the paper route to three more kids before I got it in my teens. By the time I got it, it was pretty rough, but it rode and did the job just fine other than the fact it had only a front basket on it.
Two things stick in my mind though after all the info here, it definitely had a larger headbadge, in white with black letters, and I'm fairly certain it was a larger frame than those I have now. I know I never needed an extended seat post, and don't ever remember it being too short for me even at 6ft or so tall then. (I was likely at my maximum height or close to it by the time I got that bike. The problem with that is that apparently the larger badge and a larger frame never seemed to co-exist.
Its also entirely possible that my old bike felt different because of different handlebars and possibly a different seat?
I do remember regretting not replacing the tires on that bike back then though, I never liked the small brick pattern tires back then and I'm not sure why. I eventually found a pair of Cordovan branded tires for it that had a more conventional tire tread, more of a zig-zag tread pattern with more contact width than the original tires.
If I had it now, I'd have left the original tires and not worried about it because they were original. They weren't cracked or rotted or anything, they weren't even worn all the bad considering it was used to deliver papers for the better part of a decade at that point.
The only known 1962 badges I have here are from a '62 Traveler, which used a small, but plastic badge.
That tells me definitely that the larger badges were gone by at least that point.
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Headbadge off my 1969 ontop of the original badge from my old bike.
There's about 3/4" difference in the hole spacing and slightly more in the badge
overall.
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1962 Traveler badge, not sure what else these were used on?
(I'm glad I checked this one, it all but fell off in my hand when I touched it).