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Krate fakes

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Just thinking out loud here.
Wasn’t Schwinn bike production around 1,000,000 per year from 1969 to 1973?

If my math is correct, then if even 10% of these bikes were Krates, which is highly doubtful, and even 10% of those Krates survived, also doubtful, then their would be around 50,000 in existence today in one form or another.

If only 2-3% of bicycles produced in those years were Krates, the surviving numbers would be far lower.

Schwinn made a lot of standard plain vanilla bikes during that time. They weren’t all Stingrays.
 
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How many fakes do you think are out there?

I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?

I know cotton pickers, grey ghosts and sunset orange krates were just one year, but other than those, what are the hardest to find krates? I seem to see a lot of pea pickers and lemon peelers, not so many orange and apples.

Any estimates of how many of these, not including barn finds, are really left?
Do you think there are still many around and people just aren’t willing to part with the real ones anymore?

Thoughts?
There is no way to know any numbers......lots of krates with incorrect parts, doesn't mean they are fakes......
 
There is no way to know any numbers......lots of krates with incorrect parts, doesn't mean they are fakes......
Of course not.
I didn’t say all of them are, just that more look wrong than right.

I know how much money I have put into mine and it’s VERY correct compared to many of these more expensive, shoddy, examples.

I guess if you put something on one of the Internet markets and wait long enough somebody will eventually buy it whether it worth the asking price or not.

Or if it’s even real.
 
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No doubt and it started 25 + years ago However in the end the frames all were 20" and could any day be set up to be a Krate back in the day. Seen it being done at a shop in Joliet Il. back in 2001 . they were good new the bolts you would not tell
Our Schwinn Dealer in the late 1980s to the mid 1990s was buying and rebuilding them. I had a Lemon Peeler but didn't want to sell it.
They had a stockpile of seats, forks and shifters.
Since they were a dealer their rebuilds were 100% correct.
 
Of course not.
I didn’t say all of them are, just that more look wrong than right.

I know how much money I have put into mine and it’s VERY correct compared to many of these more expensive, shoddy, examples.

I guess if you put something on one of the Internet markets and wait long enough somebody will eventually buy it whether it worth the asking price or not.

Or if it’s even real.
Some of the bikes and parts I have seen make me want to scream. Drum brake wheel from a Columbia and I couldn't convince him it was wrong. Said it was like that when his dad bought it new in 1971.
Standard Stingray seats, wromg sissybars, and these were $2k plus bikes at the time.
 
There is a pea picker on the bay right now that has a green colorline on the back.

THAT bike is authentic no doubt.

I’m so glad many of you told me not to repaint my Orange krate. (I did lightly touch it up though, nya, nya! ) Keeping the original paint, especially orange, assures myself, and any prospective buyers, that this is indeed the real deal.

Not knocking any of the gorgeous repaints I see on this forum. If the finish is really that bad go for it.
Had I not been able to save my paint, and restore it to a level that was acceptable to me, I probably would have re-shot the thing too.

When I bought my bike I knew just enough, mostly from memory, about Krates to be confident that it was real. The wrong parts like the SunTour derailleur, rear tire and seat stuck out. I wasn’t sure about the shifter because all I had remembered was the tall, straight sticks which came before and after the 69 benders. The seller told me that the design was one year only. It looked like it was welded to the bike(!) though, so I figured it was probably correct.

The paint was so oxidized that I knew it was original and no funny business there.

Had I found, and paid a lot more, for a shiny metallic pea or apple that was put together like some of the junk see online, I probably would be kicking myself right now.
 
Some of the bikes and parts I have seen make me want to scream. Drum brake wheel from a Columbia and I couldn't convince him it was wrong. Said it was like that when his dad bought it new in 1971.
Standard Stingray seats, wromg sissybars, and these were $2k plus bikes at the time.
I have not had a problem oversoaking, unlike with Phosphoric Acid.
There is a pea picker on the bay right now that has a green colorline on the back.

THAT bike is authentic no doubt.

I’m so glad many of you told me not to repaint my Orange krate. (I did lightly touch it up though, nya, nya! ) Keeping the original paint, especially orange, assures myself, and any prospective buyers, that this is indeed the real deal.

Not knocking any of the gorgeous repaints I see on this forum. If the finish is really that bad go for it.
Had I not been able to save my paint, and restore it to a level that was acceptable to me, I probably would have re-shot the thing too.

When I bought my bike I knew enough about Krates to be confident that it was real. The wrong parts like the SunTour derailleur, rear tire and seat stuck out. I wasn’t sure about the shifter because all I had remembered was the tall, straight sticks which came before and after the 69 benders. The seller told me that the design was one year only. It looked like it was welded to the bike(!) though, so I figured it was probably correct.

The paint was so oxidized that I knew it was original and no funny business there.

Had I found, and paid a lot more, for a shiny metallic pea or apple that was put together like some of the junk see online, I probably would be kicking myself right now.
I used to put Shimano Crane derailleurs on my bikes because they looked cool. I did not care about originality when I was 14.
 
I have not had a problem oversoaking, unlike with Phosphoric Acid.
I used to put Shimano Crane derailleurs on my bikes because they looked cool. I did not care about originality when I was 14.
Cranes and Larks were awesome! Really more modern designs than the aging Hurets Schwinn was using. I thought they worked better too. Weren’t they the first slant parallelograms?
 
They were among the first. I believe Suntour GT was the first, in 1964 Suntour invented the design and pantented it (per Sheldon Brown site).
Suntour was the best at what they did until after that patent expired in 1984. By then they had laxed and Shimano has SIS in the works. Suntour did not respond fast enough and some designs had technical flaws that cost them market shares.
By 1995 Suntour had stopped producing components and sold the name to SR, who never produced any older products in these lines.

Sounds like the Schwinn story doesnt it?
I must check to see if the third generation of the family had taken over yet.
That is what started killing Schwinn.
 
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