My Newest Purchase...1954 Starlet...

[Handle Bar Hoarder]

it will clean up.. nice bike.. way better than the one you past on

 

[HARPO]

As rotted out as the headlight guts are...the bulb is still in there...

 

[gkeep]

For some reason it doesn't seem there were many step thru's painted red back in the day. I very seldom see them in any shade of red. Nice piece and it's a shame the light has been nearly destroyed.

I wonder who was usually buying a girls bike? Was the new owner involve or in those days was it dad going to the bike shop and picking out the Christmas or Birthday present? Maybe all those dads just wanted their daughter to have a nice girl bike, not race car red with flames on the tank and fuzzy dice in the basket.

 

[Rivnut]

As rotted out as the headlight guts are...the bulb is still in there...

Time for an LED conversion.

 

[GTs58]

I wonder who was usually buying a girls bike? Was the new owner involve or in those days was it dad going to the bike shop and picking out the Christmas or Birthday present? Maybe all those dads just wanted their daughter to have a nice girl bike, not race car red with flames on the tank and fuzzy dice in the basket.

I would think that whatever is on the dealers floor or in stock at the time was the main factor in color choices. When the dealers ordered their stock they chose the colors, models and options. If they didn't have what you wanted you could place an order but had to wait. I wouldn't imagine a dealer stocked every single model with the different options and each in every color available.

 

[HARPO]

I did a little polishing to get a better idea of the paint color. I'll play with it more tomorrow.

 

[Handle Bar Hoarder]

As rotted

out as the headlight guts are...the bulb is still in there...

POST IT IN IN
SPUR

I did a little polishing to get a better idea of the paint color. I'll play with it more tomorrow.

View attachment 1407521

going to clean up real nice you tell already

 

[GTs58]

@GTs58 Weird color then. I've never seen it before on any Schwinn bike.

This type of Opalescent paint was used on the earlier lightweights in the 40's and early 50's. Then it seems it was used in 1954 on the Balloon models. It's a different Opal paint than the Opal paint colors used on the 55 models with the aluminum base coat. The early Opals seem to be an early metallic type paint and if you look on the 40's Continentals you'll see the difference. Here's Maryann's 54 "Goodyear" Phantom and it's an Opal Green, but no aluminum base coat like the 55 models had. There was definitely a paint product change somewhere between 1954-55.

 

[HARPO]

OK...I decided that this is as far as I'm going to take this one. To many other bikes to work on, and this is one I won't ride anyway. So...let me know if anyone is interested in it. The majority of the work is done. BUT...it needs to be picked up at my housen here on Long Island. And NO, I won't part it out. It's all or nothing on a bike this original.

If there isn't any interest here on this Post (make an offer), then I'll list it in the For Sale section here. If not, then off to Craigslist and Facebook it will be going.

 

[HARPO]

...and of course more...