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Kinda cool article found in 1980 SkateBoarder magazine by Leon Dixon

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George Garner started in California with Valley Cyclery in the San Fernando Valley. He was a very progressive dealer at the time that most bicycle stores were still grungy, 100 watt light bulb operations. I credit George and Ray Burch with changing the entire Schwinn dealer network. They invented what would later be called a Total Concept Dealership. They connected up with a local cabinet maker in Los Angeles called Bart Ralston. He custom built to fit the store size and installed the Schwinn Total Concept drawers, cabinets, divider wall, carpeted the showroom, everything was done turn key. They used the Schwinn Reporter to give credit and display the dealerships that were completed with hopes to shame other dealers to join the trend. As you know they were very successful in promoting this dealership look all across the nation. The Bike Boom of the 1970's pushed the rest to jump onboard. Eventually all the dealerships looked the same inside. They even built a Total Concept Dealership and completely stocked the store in the basement parking garage of the Hotel Fountain Blue in Miami, FL for the national dealer meeting, in the early 70's.

George, and then wife Shirley separated, and George moved to the Chicago area, Northbrook actually. He opened Valley Cycleries in the Northbrook area. I'm not certain George ever was actually employed by Schwinn; he might have had a Schwinn expense account. He had the title of Schwinn Dealer Consultant, he was definingly tight with Schwinn. Somehow. his annual dealership sales were always counted with both his Illinois and his former wife's California locations. George Garner really liked bicycle racing and was instrumental in the 1960's building of the Encino Velodrome. It was the only velodrome west of the Mississippi river at the time. The Encino Velodrome was built almost entirely by the Schwinn Dealers in the area. The dealers were successful and gave back to the cycling community. George also was active with the Northbrook Velodrome after moving to the Chicago area. George was one of the top five dealers in the country year in and year out.

Keith Kingbay was Al Fritz's sidekick. Al was the father of the Schwinn's Fitness business. In the early days Keith championed the Schwinn Fitness business at these dealer clinics. Later the fitness presentations were taken over by Vonda Carter and (Ignaz Schwinn family member, Stan Dembecki). I covered the Sacramento Valley area at the time and had a huge demand (in my mind, LOL) for industrial Cycle Trucks. Gallo Winery had a large glass bottle factory in Modesto, and they used Schwinn's Cycle Truck in the factory. My local dealer Bob's Cyclery Bob Boranian had their fleet contract. Over an evening dinner, Al Fritz and I had a lengthy conversation about the direction for new products at Schwinn. He asked me what I needed most in my district. My answer was quickly Cycle Trucks. He challenged me if could I sell as many Cycle Trucks as he could sell this new thing called a Schwinn Airdyne. That's why he got paid as a Schwinn V.P., he saved the company once again. Sig Mork the Schwinn Western Regional Manager and Al Fritz were the two guys that sold the Sting Ray concept to Schwinn management in the 60's, they sold Schwinn on the lightweight ten speed (Varsity/Continental/etc), and now Al Fritz pushed hard on the Fitness Business. They brought Kevin Lamar in with the Bowflex Acquistion, and the fitness business carried Schwinn for the final years. I believe Al Fritz came to work at Schwinn as Frank V's secretary. He was a very forward-thinking guy and made a lot of money for Schwinn over the years. He knew how to make things happen.

I have some of the 500/1000 club pins. Mine were earned as a dealer, not bought or traded. The 500 pins had a ruby stone, and the 1000 club pins had a diamond. I was not aware of the four various balloon tire pins. I also have a large Reporter collection in original binders. Some other CABE members have asked me to put together my Reporter inventory with hopes of trading extra copies for missing copies.

It's great to discuss the history of Schwinn and put the pieces together.

Thanks
John
 
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Hello John,

One more response.

I'm familiar with the Schwinn pins you describe. But there were far more than merely two types. There were at least four types of balloon model pins and at least two types of lightweight bicycle types. Here (attached) is just a sample of some of my original Schwinn pins. I have more. There was also a gold Shelby bicycle pin that has sometimes been confused with the early Schwinn pin. Got those too.

Yes I'm very familiar with the "dog & pony shows" for Schwinn dealerships. At one time, mega-dealer George Garner (who I knew) was also involved in these. George even wrote a column for Schwinn dealers in the Schwinn Reporter publication (I have all of the original Schwinn Reporter issues in binders). Of course I have autographed George Garner photos and lit. George had shops in both SoCal and Illinois. He had movie star looks, so George was great P.R. for Schwinn. No idea if he is still with us.

As for Keith Kingbay, his later time with Schwinn was spent in the so-named "Excelsior Fitness Division" where he continued promoting cycling and fitness. Keith was an old time bicycle racer and could still out-ride many youngsters in his golden years. But Keith was also hugely involved earlier with Schwinn's Service School and service issues. He did columns in The Schwinn Reporter. In fact Keith wrote the 1950s-60s "Schwinn Service Manual" that was a service backbone for many years. I still have my original, autographed to me.

Hope this adds to the story...

Was able to upload three more images...hope you like this one...

(tried to upload additional images... but I keep getting messages that the files are "too big" even after I reduced the file sizes twice)

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I have the Factory Training Pin.
Also a collection of the 500/1000 Club Dealer Pins.
I have 10 or 12 "Chuck Full" Black Schwinn Reporter binders full of Reporters.
I have the 1940's (year?), the consumer catalog that was done on brown ink with the Schwinn Lightweight and Paramount models. Nothing special as I don't think they are all that rare, I have one copy in English, and the same catalog in Spanish. Schwinn sold in Cuba before things got funky with Castro. I had never seen a Spanish version of that Schwinn catalog.
I have an original hard bound 50 years of Schwinn book signed by some of the Schwinn exec's still around at the time.
I have an original "hard bound" Schwinn Factory Service manual (two volumes) signed by Stan Natanek.
I have an original dealer headset counter display. This is the smaller sized New World style headset. I have not seen one of these in my days.

Looks like you have a nice complete Schwinn Reporter collection.

John
 
I have the Factory Training Pin.
Also a collection of the 500/1000 Club Dealer Pins.
I have 10 or 12 "Chuck Full" Black Schwinn Reporter binders full of Reporters.
I have the 1940's (year?), the consumer catalog that was done on brown ink with the Schwinn Lightweight and Paramount models. Nothing special as I don't think they are all that rare, I have one copy in English, and the same catalog in Spanish. Schwinn sold in Cuba before things got funky with Castro. I had never seen a Spanish version of that Schwinn catalog.
I have an original hard bound 50 years of Schwinn book signed by some of the Schwinn exec's still around at the time.
I have an original "hard bound" Schwinn Factory Service manual (two volumes) signed by Stan Natanek.
I have an original dealer headset counter display. This is the smaller sized New World style headset. I have not seen one of these in my days.

Looks like you have a nice complete Schwinn Reporter collection.

John
Hello John...

Good that you've got the Factory Service Training pin and collection of the 500/1000 Club dealer pins. All great items and tough to find today.

I counted 14 "chock full" large black binders of Schwinn Reporters in the NBHAA Archive. Mine go back to Volume 1 #1 (when they were smaller in size). And as I said, I also have a collection of the prewar ancestor publication "Schwinn-Built News"... which are extremely tough to find. Keith Kingbay (who was for many years keeper of the paper stuff flame at Schwinn) told me that I had more than they had! And he showed me when I visited in Chicago on a few occasions.

Yes, I have a couple of issues of "50 Years of Schwinn-Built Bicycles" book. One is autographed to me by Ed Schwinn and Keith Kingbay.

Likewise, I have a few Schwinn counter displays. But I was, of course, never a Schwinn dealer. Just a fan and a customer. I bought my last new Schwinns in the early 1970s. They were a pair of mans' and woman's Suburbans... loaded with speedometer, generator lighting system, and "briefcase" rear carriers. Yes, I still have the receipts. They were purchased new from Joe's Bike & Hobby Shop on Van Dyke Avenue in Warren Michigan. I ordered them when I lived in Ann Arbor (yes I lived there and often displayed my classic bicycles there years before my imitators). Joe's was the only dealer who could get Schwinns I wanted in the right colors and add the equipment– exactly the way I wanted. All without trying to talk me into buying a 10-speed or moaning about how "heavy" Suburbans were compared to 10-speeds (people had 10-speeds on the brain back then).

However, I am attaching pics of rare Schwinn official dealership window stickers. The blue one is prewar. The yellow one is early postwar.

Regarding the "brown ink consumer catalogue" of the 1940s that you mention, these were officially entitled, "Merrily We Roll Along." These were printed in what was known as sepia tone (or sepiatone). These looked almost like magazines and had movie stars and celebrities on lightweight Schwinns. Frankly, "Merrily We Roll Along" were in preparation for the coming war and continued to be distributed throughout WW2. There were two English-language versions that I will show here. Few people know there were two.

And yes, there were Spanish-language versions. Schwinn sold not just in Cuba, but all over Latin America... Puerto Rico, Mexico, South American countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc. And yes, when Castro seized power in 1959, that pretty much put the kibosh on many items manufactured in the USA... including Schwinns. Whizzer also sold in the same markets and I have original maps/lists of Whizzer dealers in Cuba as well as in Mexico. And there were a bunch of them.

Finally, I will try to post an image here of a Schwinn prewar balloon model pin compared to Shelby Cycle Company's gold tone pin. More than once I have had folks over the years argue with me and tell me a Shelby pin was a Schwinn pin! And yes... I have everything you can imagine on Shelby... including the company advertising archive in a huge hardbound binder. Interviewed important survivors in the 1960s-1970s and saved every imaginable paper item and factory photo... sales brochures and dealer portfolios filled with photos. Every year.

Oh... and I believe you mentioned something about velodromes earlier. I provided the vintage bicycle display for the opening of the Dominguez Hills Velodrome in Carson, California (where the Olympics were later held). It was on TV and in the newspapers... but people have forgotten this fact. Among the bicycles I displayed there were my Schwinn Black Phantom, Silver King hextube, Ranger Champion and Bowden Spacelander. Mike Shermer (who at the time was a bicycle racer and endurance rider) showed up and wanted to do an exhibition riding my Bowden down in the banked turns of the velodrome. However, knowing the reputation of Bowdens for being brittle and breaking under stress, (and knowing the velodrome was concrete) I declined. One might say... I was "skeptical." I even turned down money from a photographer who wanted to take pics of Mike riding my Spacelander in the velodrome. But I insisted it wasn't going to happen and that was that. In addition to his riding activities, Mike also wrote pieces for Bicycle Dealer Showcase trade magazine where I sometimes wrote. I still have an autographed large poster that Mike gave me back in the day. Mike later owned an actual Schwinn shop northeast of Los Angeles. Today, he is known as Michael Shermer (I always knew him back when as simply "Mike") and he publishes "Skeptic" magazine and appears on TV in shows like "Ancient Aliens." Very nice fellow.

ShelbyVSSchwinnPinsWM.jpeg


SchwinnDealerWindowStickerPrewarLeonDixonWM copy.jpeg


SchwinnDealerWindowStickerEarlyPostwarWM copy.jpeg


MerrilyWeRollAlongSchwinnLeonDixon6GDWM.jpeg


ShermerFullPoster copy.jpeg


LeonDixonSchwinnReptMailerWM.jpeg
 
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I was going through a big stack of vintage skateboard magazines to sll and I saw this!
Kinda neat considering it was in 1980 ..I couldnt imagine buying these gems..especially then when I was just going through puberty! 😂😂
There obviously NO proofreading as a few pictures are mis-captioned..Sorry for the article page quality..it is "washed out" Jeff

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Call the forum police!, I think your post was Robbed ! Lol.

Rafael ~
 
That is fantastic, Leon.
Thanks, for sharing.
I had been a big fan of the original, Great American Bike Race, in 1982.
Later to be known as the, Race Across America.
Mike Shermer was one of the original four contestants, along with Lon Haldeman, John Howard and John Marino.
518E1039-6B36-46E8-AB4A-361AC8CF0D52.jpeg

This picture was taken at the starting line, on the Santa Monica Pier, in California.
The finish line, was the Empire State Building, in New York.
These guys were like the astronauts that went to the moon.
The original super heroes.
Micheal Shermer pictured third from the left ended up with a medical condition, known as Shermer’s Neck.
It’s an actual medical term, for a severe stiff neck caused from being hunched over the handlebars for so long.
Anyway, I hadn’t heard his name mentioned in a long time.
So I really appreciate you bringing him up in conversation.
Legendary cyclist for sure!
 
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That is fantastic, Leon.
Thanks, for sharing.
I had been a big fan of the original, Great American Bike Race, in 1982.
Later to be known as the, Race Across America.
Mike Shermer was one of the original four contestants, along with Lon Haldeman, John Howard and John Marino.
View attachment 1778133
This picture was taken at the starting line, on the Santa Monica Pier, in California.
The finish line, was the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
These guys were like the astronauts that went to the moon.
The original super heroes.
Micheal Shermer pictured third from the left ended up with a medical condition, known as Shermer’s Neck.
It’s an actual medical term, for a severe stiff neck caused from being hunched over the handlebars for so long.
Anyway, I hadn’t heard his name mentioned in a long time.
So I really appreciate you bringing him up in conversation.
Legendary cyclist for sure!
Definetly some history in that photo. They were the guys back in the day. The Motobecane jersey was from Ben Lawee, the US Motobecane distributor in near by Long Beach. My family also was a Motobecane dealer during the bike boom days. Check out the Skid Lid helmets, I still have mine. It must have been the transition period, as two of the four bikes still have brake cables coming out of the levers. John Howard went on to set the motorpaced record at 140 (?) MPH behind an old car. And the best is bikes still had toe clips and straps! LOL

John
 
Hello John...

Good that you've got the Factory Service Training pin and collection of the 500/1000 Club dealer pins. All great items and tough to find today.

I counted 14 "chock full" large black binders of Schwinn Reporters in the NBHAA Archive. Mine go back to Volume 1 #1 (when they were smaller in size). And as I said, I also have a collection of the prewar ancestor publication "Schwinn-Built News"... which are extremely tough to find. Keith Kingbay (who was for many years keeper of the paper stuff flame at Schwinn) told me that I had more than they had! And he showed me when I visited in Chicago on a few occasions.

Yes, I have a couple of issues of "50 Years of Schwinn-Built Bicycles" book. One is autographed to me by Ed Schwinn and Keith Kingbay.

Likewise, I have a few Schwinn counter displays. But I was, of course, never a Schwinn dealer. Just a fan and a customer. I bought my last new Schwinns in the early 1970s. They were a pair of mans' and woman's Suburbans... loaded with speedometer, generator lighting system, and "briefcase" rear carriers. Yes, I still have the receipts. They were purchased new from Joe's Bike & Hobby Shop on Van Dyke Avenue in Warren Michigan. I ordered them when I lived in Ann Arbor (yes I lived there and often displayed my classic bicycles there years before my imitators). Joe's was the only dealer who could get Schwinns I wanted in the right colors and add the equipment– exactly the way I wanted. All without trying to talk me into buying a 10-speed or moaning about how "heavy" Suburbans were compared to 10-speeds (people had 10-speeds on the brain back then).

However, I am attaching pics of rare Schwinn official dealership window stickers. The blue one is prewar. The yellow one is early postwar.

Regarding the "brown ink consumer catalogue" of the 1940s that you mention, these were officially entitled, "Merrily We Roll Along." These were printed in what was known as sepia tone (or sepiatone). These looked almost like magazines and had movie stars and celebrities on lightweight Schwinns. Frankly, "Merrily We Roll Along" were in preparation for the coming war and continued to be distributed throughout WW2. There were two English-language versions that I will show here. Few people know there were two.

And yes, there were Spanish-language versions. Schwinn sold not just in Cuba, but all over Latin America... Puerto Rico, Mexico, South American countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc. And yes, when Castro seized power in 1959, that pretty much put the kibosh on many items manufactured in the USA... including Schwinns. Whizzer also sold in the same markets and I have original maps/lists of Whizzer dealers in Cuba as well as in Mexico. And there were a bunch of them.

Finally, I will try to post an image here of a Schwinn prewar balloon model pin compared to Shelby Cycle Company's gold tone pin. More than once I have had folks over the years argue with me and tell me a Shelby pin was a Schwinn pin! And yes... I have everything you can imagine on Shelby... including the company advertising archive in a huge hardbound binder. Interviewed important survivors in the 1960s-1970s and saved every imaginable paper item and factory photo... sales brochures and dealer portfolios filled with photos. Every year.

Oh... and I believe you mentioned something about velodromes earlier. I provided the vintage bicycle display for the opening of the Dominguez Hills Velodrome in Carson, California (where the Olympics were later held). It was on TV and in the newspapers... but people have forgotten this fact. Among the bicycles I displayed there were my Schwinn Black Phantom, Silver King hextube, Ranger Champion and Bowden Spacelander. Mike Shermer (who at the time was a bicycle racer and endurance rider) showed up and wanted to do an exhibition riding my Bowden down in the banked turns of the velodrome. However, knowing the reputation of Bowdens for being brittle and breaking under stress, (and knowing the velodrome was concrete) I declined. One might say... I was "skeptical." I even turned down money from a photographer who wanted to take pics of Mike riding my Spacelander in the velodrome. But I insisted it wasn't going to happen and that was that. In addition to his riding activities, Mike also wrote pieces for Bicycle Dealer Showcase trade magazine where I sometimes wrote. I still have an autographed large poster that Mike gave me back in the day. Mike later owned an actual Schwinn shop northeast of Los Angeles. Today, he is known as Michael Shermer (I always knew him back when as simply "Mike") and he publishes "Skeptic" magazine and appears on TV in shows like "Ancient Aliens." Very nice fellow.

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Leon, Great reminiscing about the old days of the bicycle industry.

Here's the way I view it. We are all getting older, all of this bike history, that we lived through is going to disappear when were gone. We started out collecting things that we were interested in at the time. Maybe it was the love for the art deco time period. Some might call it hoarding items, but if You, I, and others did not save this stuff it would have been thrown away long ago. I think we are just the current curators, we safely store these items, and drag them out occasionally to the light of day and share them and the stories with others that never knew some of the stuff existed. It connects the Storey as to how we got to the place we are at now. In time, all of our collections need to be passed on to the next generation of bicycle history guys. Many of the things I have collected over the years were given to me because the person that owned it knew I was interested, would provide a safe home for it and it would NOT turn up for sale on eBay. The mint (1945) 50 years of Schwinn book I have is in an original shipping box, it was given to me by Bill Chambers the dealer relations manager at Schwinn for years. It is signed by George Garner, and also Richard Schwinn.

My son is 56 years old, the bicycle things important to him are BMX bikes, not just any imported BMX bike, but the original golden age of when BMX all started, he's into original Schwinn Sting's. He just found an original Hank and Frank's hanging in one of his friends garages this weekend. I'm 76, for me the interest in bicycle hobby is early track bikes, and Balloon tire bikes. I believe were all like to collect what we did not have, could not afford, when we were growing up. Basically, there's no right or wrong period, the best history period is the one that you're interested in.

I never knew that there were two different prints for the Merrily we roll along catalogs.

Again, thanks for your insight, and all of the past history you have provided over the many years.

John Palmer
 
I happen to stumble across this thread again and thought this would be a great place to add these photos of the faces behind the inner workings of Schwinn in 1972 and 1978 ... Those mentioned in this thread ...
1972 Season's Greetings! and Feb./Mar.1979 Schwinn Reporter "Top 10 Schwinn Dealers 1978" List...

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Awesome stuff! So much to take in that I feel like Kelly Bundy and probably have forgotten my social security number now……🤣😎
#116 is the former Orange Cycle Schwinn store at Glassell and Almond in the Old Towne Orange near the monthly ride start.
#73 is Bill's Schwinn (Orange, CA) on Tustin Ave near Meats Ave.

That is a lot of Schwinn's sold at two "single location" Schwinn Dealers that were less than two miles apart.

John
 
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