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Awesome!!!!! Thank you!!! I was about 100% sure it was AMF information. If you search for my post about needing info on 53 PL and LL models, and read it, you'll see what all I am working on with this CWC/AMF transition. It did not happen in April 1951. It happened most likely in late 1953 in the H serial numbers. That's when these began having AMF decals, badges, changes, etc.
That makes sense. Even if the purchase was 1951, it would have taken time for changes to start appearing on the production bikes. I think Phil said in one of his posts that the 1954 Flying Falcon was the first new Roadmaster produced under AMF.
I was about 100% sure that this catalog was AMF all the way. That's when they changed the men's tank painting design. The CWC 1953 and a few years earlier had the paint divisions like my husband's '53. This AMF change here above also shows the men's bikes with red seats and grips, which I think is the first time for the red seat, correct? Also, interestingly, the ladies bikes don't show a ot of changes. I noticed the biggest obvious difference from my CWC ladies PL is that the AMF has 2 red pinstripes on the chainguard, whereas my CWC only had white pinstripes on the chainguard with the Roadmaster decal, no red at all. And, you see that same red pinstripe difference on the men's AMF bikes too, as well as the dual white and red fender pinstripes. My ladies 1953 CWC PL does have the white and red fender pinstripes. With my ladies having G917** they were obviously almost to the H serial numbers, so mine got the double pinstripe fenders. I am strongly thinking my suspicion is correct--that at serial numbers starting with H in 1953, were FULL AMF bikes. And, yes, I had heard before that the 54 Flying Falcon was AMF's first model.
Thank you!!!
I don't see a year anywhere in this catalog. But it shows the "Whippet" and it doesn't show the Flying Falcon, so I don't believe it's any later than 1953. And the model number for every bike starts with "C". I have another catalog from 1959 which does show the year, and the model numbers all start with "J", (As Phil notes in his list, they evidently skipped "I") so AMF must have been pretty consistent with that system.
AMF/CWC made the Trailblazer for a retailer, so it was probably based pretty closely on a standard Roadmaster model, but may not have been exactly the same. If you can find out who sold the "Trailblazer" bicycles and then find a 1953 catalog for that company, you can probably find a picture showing the bike when it was new. However, that may take some looking. Some of these companies weren't nearly as big as Sears or Montgomery Ward, so there's not nearly as much information on them in the public domain. There's not nearly as much information on Roadmaster as there is on Schwinn, just because Schwinn was a much larger company with a much larger advertising budget. There's a book on CWC bicycles made before WWII, and I can only imagine the digging it took to find the material and put it together.
