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headbadge rarity

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ozzmonaut

Wore out three sets of tires already!
Well, I come across many of those prewar Schwinn badges and I'm curious what the rarity of each is and maybe what level of bike they would be attached to. It seems like the high-end models used more of certain badges and the economy models used others. Here's how I place it so far as I can see. With 1 being rarest and most desirable. Everybody please chime in with your thoughts and we'll see how it stacks up.
1) Excelsior
2)Henderson
3)Lincoln
4)Admiral
5)ACE
6)Majestic
7)Century
8)Plains, Trains
I'm basing some of this also on how often you see originals up for sale, although lately I see a few Excelsiors for sale and no Lincolns. Although I just let a very nice Lincoln go on a basically complete bike and probably sold the bike for what the badge was worth. But I didn't want to split up the bike.
 
So I guess there's not much information or knowledge out there on these. Maybe just give some ideas based on personal experience as I did?
 
err i forgot

to mention Mission, American Beauty, Goodrich, Pullman, MEAD, even ones that said autocycle
 
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ohh

The World, Lasalle, Fleet, Electric, Cadillac, spitfire...Northwest Patrol schwinn seems to be the rarest to me...
 

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umm i dont see Chicago Supply Liberty up in your chart sir...

That's kind of the point. I doubt there's enough room in 10 posts for all of the badges ever used on Schwinns. However, Liberty and Cadillac seem to be ones that I see quite often. Northwest Patrol probably is the rarest. I've only seen a handful of originals available. I see tons of Electrics and a few of the others. I'm hoping to find out if there was a connection between the less-used badges and the level of the bike. Since the hardware company badges seem to have been used on several bikes that that company sold, it seems like there wouldn't be much connection there. E-Z speed seemed to be used on a specific bike. As though the bike model name itself was E-Z Speed. I could be wrong though. I wonder if Schwinn had a set of guidelines as far as what bikes got what kind of badge. Like "All of this particular run of deluxe-model straightbar tankers will get Excelsior" or "These bare-bones DX models get Majestic badges" Or did they just have buckets of mixed badges they would reach into , grab one and screw it to the bike? The latter seems hard to believe but I'm sure somebody here will know.
 
to mention Mission, American Beauty, Goodrich, Pullman, MEAD, even ones that said autocycle

Were MEAD badges on Schwinns? I thought MEAD just contracted out certain work to Schwinn. Like framesets and certain parts. I have a MEAD that looks identical to a Schwinn B10-E, but I just assumed Schwinn made them for Mead and Mead did what they wanted with them.
 
listed

the ones you listed i would say more rare then the others is century and lincoln but there are so many rare badges out there

i listed some of mine below and that does not even touch whats out there... there were 297 that were known that schwinn used from what i was told but who really knows

packard badge.JPG


ctribune badge.JPG


ezlincoln.JPG


nbadge1.JPG


nbade2.JPG


badges.JPG


NW patrol.jpg
 
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So I guess there's not much information or knowledge out there on these. Maybe just give some ideas based on personal experience as I did?

Depends how pre-war you are talking...there were Henderson X and Excelsior X badges that were about 1 3/4" square that are pretty valuable.....bri.
 
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