Help identifying the year and possibly the model

[HerrOtto]

So to re-cap what we know about my Continental is, even though the Catalogs say the first year of the Continental was 1946, mine may possibly be from 1945 and the external/derailleur 3 speed may have been an add on, or it came from Schwinn as an experimental. Lastly, AS-1 is going to contact a Schwinn historian to get clarification. Do I have this correct?

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

@Schwinn Sales West John, any information about why it seems all the planes and trains badged bikes got these simple script decals? I have no background on the planes and trains badge other than reading that it was used as early as 1938 and someone commented that that decal type ended in 1949. I read that if you had a certain amount of sales a dealer could make their own "Schwinn" badge design. Was this factory or a dealer thing (or a regional thing)?

Edit - The unique badge and decals feels very "jobber" to me, like a BFG or ChiCyCo (Chicago Cycle Supply Co) where they had their own badges and decals, but on a Schwinn. However, this being a planes and trains "SCHWINN" badge and decal seems—and probably is—factory.

LOL, give me some credit, I'm just a kid at "only 76 years old", and you are asking me questions about what Schwinn did in 1938 which was ten years before I was conceived? LOL

Without stirring up another dust storm about BFG bikes. Keep in mind in the early days Schwinn was not a household name. They had the factory production capacity that exceeded what they could market under just the Schwinn brand name. Building privet label product just made sense in the 20's, 30's, and 40's. I believe it's well documented by the dozens of different brand nameplates Schwinn mounted. I'm sure some of the larger dealers had enough volume (and finances) to buy in full truck trailer or railcar shipments (250-300 units). It would have been an easy decision to do a special nameplate, or decal for a store brand bike. I have never spoke to any Schwinn "old timer" that told me how many units were required to do a custom nameplate.

Distributors commonly sold multiple brands "but for a different reason". If you were a West Coast Cycle sales rep and you called on two bicycle dealers across the street from each other, you could not sell both dealers your Nishiki brand. So, they had the Azuki and Cycle Pro lines for the second dealer. Ben Lawee sold Motobecane's and Univega's for the same purpose. Centurion and Diamond Back, same thing. The Schwinn distributor (they had many) had multiple different brands that they could sell to each bicycle dealer in a town.

Most of us would agree, that all of these Schwinn brands "including the fabled BFG bikes" were just different colors, and different Schwinn parts assembled off the shelf, they were not that unique to each other. In my mind, there's no difference between painted rims and chrome rims, it just a different cosmetic finish part bolted onto a Schwinn frame.

All of this was changing, and ending by the time Schwinn was building their strong dealer network. I believe the change started with the Balloon tire which the department stores that Schwinn sold to at the time, did not want any part of new Balloon tires and wanted to stay with the 28" single tube tire style. At that point Schwinn committed to sell its "top level, top spec'd" products only through independent Schwinn bicycle dealers. The dealers needed a different, better product to compete against the larger chain department stores. The change was slow but completed by the late 1950's when Schwinn only sold one brand, and only through Franchised Schwinn Dealers. Later into the 1960's the term Franchised, was dropped, and the term Authorized Schwinn Dealer was adopted and was Schwinn's only customer. During this transition, Schwinn also dropped export sales which were done during the 1940's. Schwinn put all of their trust in the Schwinn Dealer to sell its annual factory production and service its products, and never looked back. It was a profitable relationship for both the Schwinn Company and the independent Schwinn Dealer.

John

@Schwinn Sales West John, any information about why it seems all the planes and trains badged bikes got these simple script decals? I have no background on the planes and trains badge other than reading that it was used as early as 1938 and someone commented that that decal type ended in 1949. I read that if you had a certain amount of sales a dealer could make their own "Schwinn" badge design. Was this factory or a dealer thing (or a regional thing)?

Edit - The unique badge and decals feels very "jobber" to me, like a BFG or ChiCyCo (Chicago Cycle Supply Co) where they had their own badges and decals, but on a Schwinn. However, this being a planes and trains "SCHWINN" badge and decal seems—and probably is—factory.

 

[AS-1]

LOL, give me some credit, I'm just a kid at "only 76 years old", and you are asking me questions about what Schwinn did in 1938 which was ten years before I was conceived? LOL

Without stirring up another dust storm about BFG bikes. Keep in mind in the early days Schwinn was not a household name. They had the factory production capacity that exceeded what they could market under just the Schwinn brand name. Building privet label product just made sense in the 20's, 30's, and 40's. I believe it's well documented by the dozens of different brand nameplates Schwinn mounted. I'm sure some of the larger dealers had enough volume (and finances) to buy in full truck trailer or railcar shipments (250-300 units). It would have been an easy decision to do a special nameplate, or decal for a store brand bike. I have never spoke to any Schwinn "old timer" that told me how many units were required to do a custom nameplate.

Distributors commonly sold multiple brands "but for a different reason". If you were a West Coast Cycle sales rep and you called on two bicycle dealers across the street from each other, you could not sell both dealers your Nishiki brand. So, they had the Azuki and Cycle Pro lines for the second dealer. Ben Lawee sold Motobecane's and Univega's for the same purpose. Centurion and Diamond Back, same thing. The Schwinn distributor (they had many) had multiple different brands that they could sell to each bicycle dealer in a town.

Most of us would agree, that all of these Schwinn brands "including the fabled BFG bikes" were just different colors, and different Schwinn parts assembled off the shelf, they were not that unique to each other. In my mind, there's no difference between painted rims and chrome rims, it just a different cosmetic finish part bolted onto a Schwinn frame.

All of this was changing, and ending by the time Schwinn was building their strong dealer network. I believe the change started with the Balloon tire which the department stores that Schwinn sold to at the time, did not want any part of new Balloon tires and wanted to stay with the 28" single tube tire style. At that point Schwinn committed to sell its "top level, top spec'd" products only through independent Schwinn bicycle dealers. The dealers needed a different, better product to compete against the larger chain department stores. The change was slow but completed by the late 1950's when Schwinn only sold one brand, and only through Franchised Schwinn Dealers. Later into the 1960's the term Franchised, was dropped, and the term Authorized Schwinn Dealer was adopted and was Schwinn's only customer. During this transition, Schwinn also dropped export sales which were done during the 1940's. Schwinn put all of their trust in the Schwinn Dealer to sell its annual factory production and service its products, and never looked back. It was a profitable relationship for both the Schwinn Company and the independent Schwinn Dealer.

John

Golly, all this time, I thought you were in your 90s.

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

Golly, all this time, I thought you were in your 90s.

And I thought I had you fooled, darn!

John

 

[SirMike1983]

During this transition, Schwinn also dropped export sales which were done during the 1940's. Schwinn put all of their trust in the Schwinn Dealer to sell its annual factory production and service its products, and never looked back. It was a profitable relationship for both the Schwinn Company and the independent Schwinn Dealer.

Have you ever come across any indication the Schwinn "lightweights" like the New World/Superior/Continental were exported to other countries? I know that the Paramount was at least known abroad, but I've never been able to find anything indicating the more run-of-the-mill type lightweights left the US. Hercules and later Raleigh seemed to come into the US from Britain and become well-accepted here, but the reverse does not seem to have taken place, perhaps because it just was not economical to compete with them on their home turf. I'd be thrilled to find some indication that back-in-the-day, Schwinn was exporting the run-of-the-mill lightweights, but all the indications I've seen seem to indicate they were an American domestic thing.

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

Have you ever come across any indication the Schwinn "lightweights" like the New World/Superior/Continental were exported to other countries? I know that the Paramount was at least known abroad, but I've never been able to find anything indicating the more run-of-the-mill type lightweights left the US. Hercules and later Raleigh seemed to come into the US from Britain and become well-accepted here, but the reverse does not seem to have taken place, perhaps because it just was not economical to compete with them on their home turf. I'd be thrilled to find some indication that back-in-the-day, Schwinn was exporting the run-of-the-mill lightweights, but all the indications I've seen seem to indicate they were an American domestic thing.

SirMike, I'm sure you have seen, (likely even have) a copy of the 1941-1942 Schwinn catalog that says on the cover MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. It was a large sized Schwinn consumer catalog, and I think it was printed in brown sepia (?) ink. Anyway, it was focused on only the Schwinn lightweight models from the New World up to and including the Paramount models. It also featured all of the Schwinn built lightweight parts, and the lightweight parts sold under the Schwinn brand that would later be called Schwinn Approved parts. It's a pretty widely distributed catalog, commonly seen, collected.

Schwinn produced that same exact catalog in both ENGLISH, and SPANISH languages. Thanks to Jim Hurd, I have a copy in both languages. I think the catalog was first available in 1941 and I have some kind of a consumer magazine (the name was cut off) that has a 1941 date printed on it advertising to write to Schwinn for your free copy of the Merrily We Roll Along catalog. The Spanish Language has a "copyright 1942" on the back page that is not on the English language copy.

That's all the "hard copy" proof I have. But I know that Schwinn sold it's products into Cuba (until Castro's takeover), and some South American countries. It would be my belief, (but just an educated guess) that there's no other reason that a "very fiscally tight" F.W. Schwinn would not have paid the advertising agency to take a one-year-old catalog and change the language over to Spanish unless he was trying to help his Spanish Language area distributor(s) to make inroads into more export sales of the Lightweight Schwinn's.

CON JUBILO RODAMOS is the title, copyright 1942, Exactly the same, just different language.

It's obvious that Schwinn's export efforts did not hold a candle to Raleigh's.

One more thing, Schwinn had a EXPORT SALES position. The person's name was Rudy Acosta in December 1959. By December of 1960, Rudy Acosta's title had changed to just SALES, the export part had been dropped. Just another guess that this was the time period of the Castro take over and Schwinn had made adjustments to the changes in the world market.

I hope this helps answer your question and concerns.

John

 

[GTs58]

So to re-cap what we know about my Continental is, even though the Catalogs say the first year of the Continental was 1946, mine may possibly be from 1945 and the external/derailleur 3 speed may have been an add on, or it came from Schwinn as an experimental. Lastly, AS-1 is going to contact a Schwinn historian to get clarification. Do I have this correct?

Unless some Schwinn literature shows up stating when the Continental was first available, it would be safe to say yours is one of the very early built 1946 examples that hit the streets going by the low serial number and the Schwinn down tube decal without the Continental name. Even though the K serials were used on the war time New Worlds, the serials did not run in numerical order with the later post war K serials. The derailleur factory option came about later on, and Schwinn mentioned it's the benelux. No mention of the derailleur option even in the 1948 catalog but it is on the 1951 price sheet.

 

[HerrOtto]

Thank you GTs58.

 

[Oilit]

So to re-cap what we know about my Continental is, even though the Catalogs say the first year of the Continental was 1946, mine may possibly be from 1945 and the external/derailleur 3 speed may have been an add on, or it came from Schwinn as an experimental. Lastly, AS-1 is going to contact a Schwinn historian to get clarification. Do I have this correct?

That sums it up with what we know now. But if it was experimental and @AS-1 can find some documentation, then you have a very rare bike indeed!

 

[HerrOtto]

Thank you Oilit