Looking to positively ID the year of this frame, 35 or 36?

[Wolfmac]

Yeah the early Schwinn blade fork is more elegant at the crown like your 40. I haven’t seen a blade fork on a Schwinn before the DX came out in 39. The Jobbers sometimes did their own thing with Schwinns it would seem. Unusual frame too. Kind of a short C model motobike mashup.

 

[WillWork4Parts]

After reading a little more about the frame shapes and fender widths...I'm thinking I've got a 1937 Model CA, DD, and it's a BMF besides!

Then I get into the CABE issue of the Schwinn Built Bicycles book, and that is not the case at all! The end of 37 was the introduction for Schwinn's D Model.

Looks like the D97X is the closest Schwinn model to mine, with the straight middle tube, straight seat stays, no holes in fender for a light, and fork without the truss rod supports.

I'd love to see a 37 Louisville Cycle catalog to say exactly what equipment those models came with. The braced bars and hockey stick chain guard seem out of place on a D model, but who knows what the hardware store ordered...

 

[Wolfmac]

I think you got it. Funny, I have this book and must have scoured it a couple hundred times. That page is at the end of the 37 year section and I've never really studied it before. The illustration is difficult to make out but it appears to be the early blade fork. Unfortunately, no fork description in the text. Looks like the large clover ring up front. Don't see those much but the rest of it should be easy to source if you were inclined. Fun project.

 

[OC_Rolling_Art]

Unusual C model DD frame, don't see those very often. Mid-Late 1937 looks like

No you do not, I dig it...

 

[Wolfmac]

"Same blue, would Kobalt Blue be the proper call-out for those years?"

Kobalt blue is different and I think a post war color only. Could be wrong. I have a 41 DX in the same blue as your 40 and a post war B6 in Kobalt blue. They are very different. Someone once told me it was called BA blue, whatever that means,

 

[GTs58]

As far as I know, Schwinn did not have names for the colors at that time. Light blue dark blue was usually the description. I’ll attach a color page for the post war colors in a minute as an example of how Schwinn calls out their colors.
Some postwar colors did have a name but not all the colors had a specific name.