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Hand stamped serial number D9147

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Agreed on their desire to spend labor dollars and focus attention on the parts of the bike that the customer cared the most about or that were the most visible to them. But something still doesn’t add up with the difference in stampings between the 1 piece crank bikes vs the 3 piece crank bikes. Schwinn is investing in automation to reduce labor hours and speed production. The BB are starting to get electroforged and machine stamped for the 1 piece crank bikes around this time. But for some reason they are still sending the 3 piece crank BB shells down a line with guys using hand stamps to overlay an I and an O stamp to make a composite D. That doesn’t jive with the automated, labor reducing mind set we see them taking. There’s got to be something else going on. Something we don’t know about or understand yet.

There has to be a good explanation and reason for the hand stamping but it's probably buried somewhere! The one piece crank shells had machine stamped serials starting in 1937! And honestly, I don't remember seeing machine stamped BB shells for the three piece crank on the post war pieces until the late 40's. Looks like the three piece shells were machine stamped in 1949. @Oilit 's 49 New World.
And another note. There are no U serials listed on the 1949 SN list or for the 48 thru 51 numbers.

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There has to be a good explanation and reason for the hand stamping but it's probably buried somewhere! The one piece crank shells had machine stamped serials starting in 1937! And honestly, I don't remember seeing machine stamped BB shells for the three piece crank on the post war pieces until the late 40's. Looks like the three piece shells were machine stamped in 1949. @Oilit 's 49 New World.
And another note. There are no U serials listed on the 1949 SN list or for the 48 thru 51 numbers.

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I've wondered about that as well. @Bicyclelegends posted pictures of two Continentals, one with a "U" serial (machine stamped), and it looks like that bike has a 3 speed hub. I asked him if there was a date on the hub but I never heard back. His thread:
 
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There is also a pic of what the 3 piece machine stamped D looks like in that thread. It doesn’t look like an I and a O 😛
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There is also a pic of what the 3 piece machine stamped D looks like in that thread. It doesn’t look like an I and a O 😛
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I'm up in the air about this one being machine stamped. Sure is a mess if it was, but it has a great looking D! 1948? What's the 4th and 5th number? The #6 looks like a double stamped made up number like the old D's. 🤣 Definitely a funkadelic #6.
 
Definitely not easy to read the last two digits. 🔍 🙃 The stamp was not lined up with the surface of the BB very well. Schwinn just can’t get this right.😛
 
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I'm up in the air about this one being machine stamped. Sure is a mess if it was, but it has a great looking D! 1948? What's the 4th and 5th number? The #6 looks like a double stamped made up number like the old D's. 🤣 Definitely a funkadelic #6.
Definitely not easy to read the last two digits. 🔍 🙃 The stamp was not lined up with the surface of the BB very well. Schwinn just can’t get this right.😛
From the serial list, Schwinn went from 5 digit serials to 6 digits in September 1948, which I'm guessing was for the bikes with one piece cranks. On the three piece cranks, it looks like when they changed from hand stamping to machine stamping they also went from 4 digits to 5. Maybe there's a connection? Or maybe not, but either way it's interesting.
 
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