1948 Schwinn Continental - Ladies Step thru - 3 Speed SA - Maroon

[rennfaron]

Last year was a good year for finding some if you were looking. I think there were one or two T&Cs sets that hit feebay and a few other sets that turned up. Finding them in good condition is another thing. Like @SirMike1983 pointed out, they can be heavily split. Sometimes easy to repair, sometimes not. In terms of this style versus other Schwinn oval grip styles I would say they are uncommon. The regular finger gripped (all variants) turn up all the time.

For anyone interested these are the foam style described.
...never seen those brown ones...

 

[Jim sciano]

Absolutely beautiful.

 

[HARPO]

Drop...Dead...Gorgeous!!!!!!!

Those pedals are worth quite a bit!

 

[AmericanSchwinnfiend]

This one came out of the Denver area. The condition looked so nice that I figured I would bring it home. A woman had purchased it from the original owner (I think) and I assume wanted that vintage looking bike to pedal around town on but I think it ended up being more complicated to get it going than she planned for and turned it loose. Special thanks to @palepainter and @Mr. Monkeyarms for helping get the bike here (and @Mike Rosseau on backup help).

I cleaned it up quite a bit but the paint could use some more work. The condition overall is pretty amazing and it looks to have had not much use over the years (or delicate use - somewhat typical of ladies bikes). Most of the bolts/screws/nuts have almost no marks of use. One of the previous owners was a little heavy handed cleaning the decals and scrubbed some of the details away. They still look pretty good.

Overview

• The paint still looks great and with some more polishing would really make it pop. A lot of areas are done but I kind of stopped around the decals. With how great the paint looks I am surprised the decals aren't in better condition, but that might be because of the previous owner's attempt to clean it up... The head badge is one of the nicer ones I have seen with paint infills still in perfect condition.
• Bars are the typical gull wing style of these tourist Schwinns. The original owner had put cork grips on were glued on with with what looked to be...expanding insulating foam... It was a pain to remove and the foam had bubbled up all some parts of the brake levers and dripped down on the wheels. It also filled the ends of the handlebars as they pushed the grips. I had a set of original grips that would have been on these contis and put them on.
• It has a very nice condition double adjustable neck. The stem expander and binder bolts barely shows any marks of use.
• Somewhat uncommon Sturmey Archer GC2 model 3 speed shifter. From what I know about them the GC2 model was first introduced in 1948 and this version ran until '49. They were the second iteration of 3 speed shifter by SA. There was another version of this face plate design in black. The condition of this one is in top notch condition.
• Brake levers are typical of the Schwinns during this time. They still have the cloth braided housings in pretty good condition.
• Crank is 3 piece and typical of the contis of the time. All the grease in the front hub, head set and the BB looked to be somewhat new so I wonder if one of the previous owners tuned up before they sold it.
• Pedals are Torrington No. 7 in really nice condition. The catalog for these says: "This model answers these requires (Lightness Without Impairing Durability) for such a pedal on Light-Weight bicycles where the rider's feet are usually dressed in everyday shoes and the pedals, therefore, should have rubber treads. A Light but Strong combination rubber tread pedal built on a racing type rat-trap frame and axle assembly.
• Saddle is a 4502 Continental Mattress Tourist saddle. This one I replaced with one I had. The original one is in really nice condition but somehow the top shrank in size and has pulled away from the frame underneath.
• The tires on this look period correct and most likely the originals. If so the rubber is still extremely soft.
• Rims are an early Schwinn Tubular S-6 with dimped knurling down the center.
• Rear hub is Sturmey Archer stamped 48 / 3. Front hub is Schwinn script.
• Serial is U69702. It is machine stamped and I couldn't get a great shot of it with how thick the paint is. It is very faint.
• Still need to put the chain back on...

Enjoy!

Some other bikes I have posted:

• 1943 New World
• 1950 World
• 1952 World
• 1954 Collegiate
• 1955 World
• 1959 Traveler
• 1962 Traveler

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back in the day, when there were many tire manufacturers in the United States, there was a tire available that fit the S-6 rims that was wider and higher profile, I remember going into a Sherba's auto parts store in the early 1970s and buying all the new old stock American tires and having one. It had an unusual size listed that I cannot recall but it was something like 26x 1.375. It must have been made in the 1950s or possibly early 1960s. It may have been made by Carlyle or Uniroyal, but perhaps all the companies made them. from the look of the fender fit on this bike it appears that that size would have been a good fit. I also remember another tire that was marked as 26x 1 1/4 that was narrower and lower profile that was made for S-6 rims.

 

[SirMike1983]

Some of the post-war Schwinn lightweights have peculiar fender spacing, particularly the rear fender. There is often a large gap between the fender and the tire at the front of the rear wheel. If you don't like the look of this gap, it can sometimes be reduced using a small collar/sleeve spacer between the front fender boss on the frame and the front face of the rear fender.

Sometimes there are large gaps as well at the top and back of the rear wheel. I've never really attributed this to tire size because even with the larger tire size, the wheels I've worked with still had the gaps.

The 1947 Continental that was belonged to CABE user Harpo, and which I now have, has large gaps front and rear for the back wheel. We discussed this a little by PM, and he remarked that the rear fender gaps were big, something I noticed on it as well. These gaps were original to the bike because I drilled out the original rivets and the original rubber bushings (rotted out) were still there. No one changed anything - the bike just never had good fender lines. [If you ride your Continental and the fenders are loose and rattle - check the braces for play due to rotted rubber bushings. The bushings have a snugness and anti-rattle role.] I reduced the gap a bit in the front with a spacer between fender and frame, and at the back a bit by carefully bowing the braces a bit. That said, it still has pretty large gaps even with wide-ish 35mm tires.

 

[bikerbluz]

This one came out of the Denver area. The condition looked so nice that I figured I would bring it home. A woman had purchased it from the original owner (I think) and I assume wanted that vintage looking bike to pedal around town on but I think it ended up being more complicated to get it going than she planned for and turned it loose. Special thanks to @palepainter and @Mr. Monkeyarms for helping get the bike here (and @Mike Rosseau on backup help).

I cleaned it up quite a bit but the paint could use some more work. The condition overall is pretty amazing and it looks to have had not much use over the years (or delicate use - somewhat typical of ladies bikes). Most of the bolts/screws/nuts have almost no marks of use. One of the previous owners was a little heavy handed cleaning the decals and scrubbed some of the details away. They still look pretty good.

Overview

• The paint still looks great and with some more polishing would really make it pop. A lot of areas are done but I kind of stopped around the decals. With how great the paint looks I am surprised the decals aren't in better condition, but that might be because of the previous owner's attempt to clean it up... The head badge is one of the nicer ones I have seen with paint infills still in perfect condition.
• Bars are the typical gull wing style of these tourist Schwinns. The original owner had put cork grips on were glued on with with what looked to be...expanding insulating foam... It was a pain to remove and the foam had bubbled up all some parts of the brake levers and dripped down on the wheels. It also filled the ends of the handlebars as they pushed the grips. I had a set of original grips that would have been on these contis and put them on.
• It has a very nice condition double adjustable neck. The stem expander and binder bolts barely shows any marks of use.
• Somewhat uncommon Sturmey Archer GC2 model 3 speed shifter. From what I know about them the GC2 model was first introduced in 1948 and this version ran until '49. They were the second iteration of 3 speed shifter by SA. There was another version of this face plate design in black. The condition of this one is in top notch condition.
• Brake levers are typical of the Schwinns during this time. They still have the cloth braided housings in pretty good condition.
• Crank is 3 piece and typical of the contis of the time. All the grease in the front hub, head set and the BB looked to be somewhat new so I wonder if one of the previous owners tuned up before they sold it.
• Pedals are Torrington No. 7 in really nice condition. The catalog for these says: "This model answers these requires (Lightness Without Impairing Durability) for such a pedal on Light-Weight bicycles where the rider's feet are usually dressed in everyday shoes and the pedals, therefore, should have rubber treads. A Light but Strong combination rubber tread pedal built on a racing type rat-trap frame and axle assembly.
• Saddle is a 4502 Continental Mattress Tourist saddle. This one I replaced with one I had. The original one is in really nice condition but somehow the top shrank in size and has pulled away from the frame underneath.
• The tires on this look period correct and most likely the originals. If so the rubber is still extremely soft.
• Rims are an early Schwinn Tubular S-6 with dimped knurling down the center.
• Rear hub is Sturmey Archer stamped 48 / 3. Front hub is Schwinn script.
• Serial is U69702. It is machine stamped and I couldn't get a great shot of it with how thick the paint is. It is very faint.
• Still need to put the chain back on...

Enjoy!

Some other bikes I have posted:

• 1943 New World
• 1950 World
• 1952 World
• 1954 Collegiate
• 1955 World
• 1959 Traveler
• 1962 Traveler

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That honey is gorgeous!