I have no reservations in my mind that Schwinn would have or could have produced one or more Blue Phantoms. It's totally plausible. This particular Blue Phantom hits me hard as someones creation though and not a factory produced piece. The paint looks very convincing, in pictures, and if it was redone by someone they did very good job. But, the paint on the tank, or what's left of it lacked something like prepping for painting over chrome. Possibly a different paint product or lack of the correct base coat. In my experience, looking at how the remaining paint is pealing on the tank, I'd bet that was lacquer and not enamel and the candy may have been shot over the chrome with no base coat. Another issue is the ghost Black Phantom decal. No good explanation what so ever for that IMO, someone had a big brain fart and no scissors. So we have a ghosting of the Black Phantom decal on the chain guard but there is not one single trace, NONE, of the Schwinn Quality decal at the top of the seat tube or of the Patent decal at the bottom of the seat tube. Those decals must not have been available at the time the bike was redone? Wishful thinking on this one. Although and the creator did a very good job, he definitely missed a couple very small but important details, and at that time he probably wasn't trying to fool anyone into believing this was a factory Blue Phantom.
