That's an interesting letter. I see several things that make me ask questions. It looks like an information sheet that was sent out to consumers that might have contacted the Schwinn Bicycle Company looking for vintage parts. That is not the type of letter that the Schwinn Consumer Relations Department normally sent out to a customer request, it's NOT addressed to a specific customer?
The Schwinn Consumer Relations Department was located at 217 Jefferson (Downtown Chicago), not at 1155 Harvester Road in West Chicago. This looks like a contracted public relations piece to me, like a third-party vendor. I would like to know what is/was at 1155 Harvester Road? Was this location close to Schwinn Sales Midwest?
The fifth person on that list was James Hurd, the future Schwinn History Collection Curator, and author of several bicycle books.
John
Ahhh... another one of these.
First, if you know the history of
this history then you will know that this 1985 version of the
Schwinn Consumer Information Bulletin #20 is NOT the original– which was from 1981. And... heaven forbid... the original was written largely by myself and a Schwinn employee and ISSUED in 1981– four years earlier than what you see here. AND in a different format (see attachment).
Originally
Schwinn Consumer Information Bulletin #20 listed only Leon Dixon and my newsletter "
Classic Bicycle & Whizzer News." THAT is because there was no other newsletter. And no one with more expertise or a bigger literature collection than yours truly. At that time. EVERYTHING starts somewhere... regardless of whether some want to admit this today or not. There WAS a starting point!
I am attaching this
Schwinn Consumer Bulletin #20 as it ORIGINALLY appeared in 1981. There was no long "
me too" list attached to it. Leon Dixon was on radio, television, in newspapers and major magazines, at bicycle industry trade shows... generating interest in a hobby that basically did not exist. Doing everything possible to define and promote American-made
CLASSIC BICYCLES of 1920-1965...
NOT contraptions from the 1800s and early 1900s. Today... there are those who will tell you that somehow this hobby just fell out of the sky. Like... uh... the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause. It just magically "happened"...right?
But... my imitators quickly grew by leaps and bounds right after my "
1st National Classic Bicycle Swap Meet & Show" in Chicago at Schwinn was in newspapers, magazines, on radio and TV! This was in 1981. (SEE ATTACHMENTS AND BE SURE TO READ THE LAST ATTACHMENT REVIEWING MY 1981 CHICAGO SHOW IN NOVEMBER OF 1981 IN FAMOUS "BICYCLE JOURNAL" MAGAZINE"... bet folks today will like the "Get-A-Grip" ad!)
Suddenly evvvvvvvverybody and their mother wanted to get in on the act. Evvvvverybody was an expert. There were new newsletters and imitators and swap meets popping up every other month! The whole world wanted to get in on things– whether they knew what they were talking about or not! It didn't matter if you had expertise, you just needed a bushel of cronies and you could talk a good game.
Worse I was in the midst of a divorce during much of this period. So those with bias and jealous imitators knew the money was drying up... and they smelled blood! One person versus the whole world. Next thing I knew, the whole world had their feet on my shoulders and were pretending that all this stuff– this hobby of CLASSIC BICYCLES (as they are known today) just kinda... fell out of the sky! Who's Leon Dixon? Just another anonymous face in the crowd ... a mere member in an ever-growing crowd.
I had "
CLASSIC BICYCLE & WHIZZER NEWS"... I had once lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I started promoting a hobby of Classic Bicycles.
I had a red Bowden Spacelander. I started CLASSIC BICYCLE CLUB OF AMERICA and was attempting to get the club on its feet. My "
1st NATIONAL CLASSIC BICYCLE SWAP MEET AND SHOW" was intended to be an annual event. With an annual meet that would travel around the country. The 2nd NATIONAL CLASSIC BICYCLE SWAP MEET AND SHOW
would have been at Ann Arbor and
would have included a visit to the site of the Evans-Colson bicycle plant and
would have had speakers (now all dead) who actually designed CLASSIC BICYCLES. This was already planned out... AND YOU KNOWWWW I HAVE THE LETTERS AND MORE. YES... the 2nd National would have also incuded a display of Leon Dixon's NOS and prototype bicycles. BUT my divorce was in full swing AND...
Next thing I knew...out of the throngs of imitators, some dude pops up from nowhere, claiming expertise... with a similar-sounding newsletter "ANTIQUE/CLASSIC BICYCLE NEWS" (cute, huh?) out of the same town where I had lived in Michigan. With a pieced-together customized Bowden (and you knowww it had to be RED). Also claiming to be "president" of Classic Bicycle Club. How original! I did the first worldwide article on the hobby published in January of 1978 (
talking about Schwinn Phantom, Elgin Bluebird, Elgin Skylark, etc.) Now, suddenly here was a clone article in
POPULAR MECHANICS (LOOK IT UP!!!) discussing those very same bicycles and referring to the hobby as "
new" and "in its infancy." All with zero mention of Leon Dixon. Wow. Whatever hobby that existed had suddenly developed, clone newsletters, clone vernacular, clone books, clone articles, clone experts. All while developing both amnesia and blindness.
I had already gone to two major book publishers in the late 1970s to do a bicycle book I had written on the history of all this stuff. But? With who knows who whispering who knows what in their ears, both backed out. The rejection letter from
Motorbooks International stated they were a car book publisher and state they had my manuscript... and that it was "excellent material." They actually said this. I CAN SHOW YOU. But they did not want to publish my book on Classic Bicycles
because they were a CAR BOOK PUBLISHER. YES, I have the letter. It was dated in 1982.
Apparently by 11 or 12 years later, this same publisher had somehow developed amnesia, could not remember Leon Dixon OR Leon Dixon's
Classic Bicycle book manuscript... or copyrighted definition... OR their vow that they did not want to publish a bicycle book!!! They published a bicycle book after all– not written by, as so many claim, but CO-WRITTEN by (meaning they had to find someone else to do it but kept the guy onboard anyway). Of course, today, this company is perhaps the largest publisher of such bicycle books. None of the originals even mentioned Leon Dixon. Now... why would that be? Slipped their minds? Never heard of me? Never saw my manuscript? Never saw my writings in car magazines or my awards?
And "authors" don't get that title because they Xerox/photocopy a bunch of stuff, bind it and put it up for sale! Well... maybe they do in today's upside-down world.
John (Schwinn Sales West) speaks in great reverence of this today and mentions a so-called "author" and "curator" of the Schwinn museum. John also wonders about addresses and what was where and the
Schwinn Consumer Bulletin #20. Well? Wonder no more. Take a look at the attachments.
Let's look at this "curator" business. The original "curator" of Frank Schwinn's collection (which became the so-called "Schwinn Museum") was obviously Frank Schwinn.
Then came Keith Kingbay... a very legitimate and knowledgable bicycle historian and expert. You don't know him? Keith was (among his many other great accomplishments) the man who wrote the
Schwinn Service Manual– you know... the one that people keep photocopying and selling?
I FORGOT TO MENTION... During Keith Kingbay's turn as curator of Frank Schwinn's collection, my old friend Tom Bruck served as
co-curator. If you didn't know or never heard of Corwin Thomas Bruck, he (along with Keith) was one of my mentors in bicycle history. Tom had worked for most of the major names in the bicycle business starting back at the turn of the century! He knew everybody and everything ranging from the 1800s into the 1960s when I met him. We had phone calls and correspondence until his death. Tom Bruck lived, ate and slept vintage bicycles. IN the 1970s, Tom was the ONLY person aside from Keith and Frank who had a key to the Schwinn Library (where I was allowed to go several times). Tom could go in there ANY TIME he wanted. Do you guys know about the Schwinn Library?????? I was there. Let's hear
YOUR stories. Tom often ate in the Schwinn cafeteria with Schwinn employees IN CHICAGO. I ate there too. Tom and Keith (often both) accompanied me whenever I came to Chicago.
Then came (wait for it... ) Karl Wiegand (what????? You don't remember Karl????). Oh? You don't? I'm attaching a letter from Karl to me. By the code, you can see that Karl had a secretary– or services thereof. Karl was also featured in a major Chicago newspaper article referencing him WITH photograph as official
Curator of the Schwinn Collection. You Schwinn fans and experts out there have this newspaper article about Karl... don't you?
THEN came the clones.
The Schwinn "history" of the 1980s until recent years is NOT the Schwinn
history so many seem to believe. And one does not become an author with no writing experience, no collection, borrowed "expertise" and no history with the history. At least not in a world where logic prevails. But... just say the word, "Schwinn" and eyes look up to heaven while knees begin to bend... and that's that.
Leon Dixon
National Bicycle History Archive of America
(NBHAA.com)
