Seems too strict to me
@rennfaron My 41 New World is just as much a “New World” as one with a tool bag, 3 piece crank, hand brakes, and multi-gear hub. To say that the simple 50s lightweight “World” bikes are in a different spirit from the earlier New World bikes seems limiting. Can we agree that New World lightweights are a platform that can be equipped to different tastes?
If some of the 50 and 51 World bikes came with ”New World“ head badges, it’s hard to make a case to exclude those just because Schwinn rearranged the furniture. Especially since the 3 bikes pictured above look almost identical to my 41.
With that said I’d like to stop any confusion on there being different models in the 50s like World and Traveler bikes. Similar to pre war vs war time and post war charts, I would separate these 50s World bikes and any Traveler bikes we collect in different tables. Does that make sense?
This "spirit" thing is strange to me because if you look at a lot of the cantilever schwinn models they are all very similar except for an added light kit here, an added rack there, swap out saddle here, decal changes there and a couple swapped components. No one over in that forum calls an american or tiger a corvette just because they look very similar (they have a lot more interest and people scrutinizing details). Rearrange furniture? That is just the way schwinn did things. That is the way they met certain price points and the way they could reuse without having to recreate an entirely new thing. Cheapest way to do that is new paint colors and new decals (almost the same parts) and then call the bike "ALL NEW" on all the advertisements. The car industry has done that constantly over time. The lightweight tourists of the 50s were all very similar. To that point, all the diamond frame lightweight tourist bikes of this period by all manufacturers basically "looked" the same. And to that point, many of the parts found on the very early travelers were english parts (the brake levers can be found on same period raleighs; the saddle bag can also be found on same year raleighs; many of the early travelers can be found with OEM wrights / brooks saddles; I am sure there are more but don't know enough about other manufacturers - I do know that the 50s columbia lightweight tourists looked so similar to the traveler - check out "the lexington" attached - look at it side-by-side to the traveler ad below). Under this "spirit" lens you need to start calling the 40s paramount / superior tourists, "worlds" too then...
It is easy to make a case - Just because you like a certain model doesn't mean you can broadly define them all the same. By "world bikes" I assume you are referring to world, traveler and varsity models because the traveler and varsity also said "WORLD" on their decals? Schwinn was not strict to call the traveler and varsity models "world traveler" and "world varsity" in all literature. I picked that up by
@SirMike1983 to help define the early travelers from the later travelers and
it made sense. In some literature they say "world traveler" but not all. In the price lists and bicycles parts accessories catalogs they just call them traveler and varsity. When Schwinn moved into 50s the "world" term started to die off when used with the traveler and varsity models. Obviously the world model was always referred to as world, as that is what the model was called. All of the examples I have seen of the early 50s world and world traveler models had NW head badges. I don't know the reasoning by Schwinn to keep those NWs head badges on new models of a different name. And reusing the head badge didn't mean they were trying to apply NW value to the new models because they never mentioned the the NWs in any traveler or world ads. It wasn't like they said, hey folks, check out this reimagined NW, now called the traveler. Schwinn was always trying to promote NEW. Attached is an early 50s traveler ad. Notice the round head badge. They don't speak of NW in the ad. They don't care. They also don't call it the "world traveler" in this ad. That was then, this is now. The term "world" has been around with Schwinn since the very beginning. That was something
the founders obviously saw value in and I assume liked the thought of expedition and discovery (
some of this stuff is really old) (they also liked to say "world's finest" in just about every advertisement). (edit) Most if not all of the Schwinn's bikes were "world" bikes
back in the late 1800s and
early 1900s, as I understand that back then that was their offering - "world bicycles" (I don't know enough about the early days - but I think there was a world line and an excelsior line as their offering later on). Schwinn has used and reused and reapplied the term "world" throughout their history on many bikes (world (
late 1800s / early 1900s); the world (
30s /
40s / 50s?); world imperial (
40s /
40s /
40s / 50s?);
world motorbike; new world (30s/40s); world traveler (
50s /
70s);
world (50s);
world varsity (50s); world tourist (
80s /
90s); world sport (
80s);
world voyageur (70s); I am sure there are more. Many of the head badges featuring the word "world" look very similar too (attached - the first one shown is very early 1900s). Schwinn just reused stuff. That doesn't mean they were the same bikes or in the "spirit" of the NWs.
Part of what I think makes this site great is the enthusiasm of many trying to understand Schwinn's thought process by digging through the catalogs, finding original examples and then determining what is correct and not correct for certain years. It is also the reason I think many come to the site to better understand what they have and don't have. I think it is a disservice to blur lines. I have spent a considerable amount of time and money trying to document and understand all of these 50s lightweights. I really enjoy trying to understand why Schwinn did certain things and equally enjoy trying to track down period correct parts and original bikes.
If you want to make a list, great, it will be good to see things in the same way you have done with NWs, but don't lump models together just because you think they visually look the same. If you want to make separate lists, cool. I thought what you did with the NWs was long overdue and someone needed to collect all the information that was out there into a quick guide. It would be interesting to find some 50s NWs to see them dated side-by-side with "world" and "traveler" models.
Also -
Rollfaster's world looks similar because it is either a repaint or the decals have been rubbed off, so it appears more similar. As stated above, sure it looks similar. The differences in the lightweights are small. Same with the differences in the cantilever bikes of the 50s (as
@GTs58 will tell you).
