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Old Bike Haul, Looking for some Information

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The 502 is Murray of Ohio’s numbering code for bikes they built for Sears. Chances are that Sears marketed the bike as a JC Higgins. The 46xxx number is the model number. That number will also tell ou the year that the bike was sold as. Like new cars, late month bikes would be sold as the next years models. A kid wouldn’t want to receive a new bike for Christmas in 1957 and have it be last year’s model a week later In January of 1958. Bikes had to be in stores early enough for Christmas sales but be next the years model.
Cool! Is there a link to somewhere that describes how those number codes work? I’ve looked around but I can’t seem to make any sense of it. I saw somewhere that the 502 is a Murray built Sears bike but I couldn’t make heads or tails out of the rest of the number.
 
For the Schwinn, use the tool in the pinned threads in the Schwinn forum. It will,rake some work on your part but it’s much better than the online tool. The only way I know of to find the Sears bikes made by Murray is to look through the book “Collectable Elgin, JC Higgins, and Sears……..” it’s a compilation of catalog pages. Be aware, the numbers are not in any kind of order.
 
Interesting, help me out here then. When I use the Schwinn serial number tool it comes back as a 1953. I also looked up a Schwinn numbers list and it seems like it would fit that year. What makes you think it’s earlier?

First I have to say that the serial look up on Bicycle Org is flawed. Your serial number is under the crank, 1953 numbers were on the left rear drop out. 1951 and early bikes had the serial numbers under the crank. The number H18630 has five digits after the H. The H serial numbers for 1951 have six digits after the H.
 
For the Schwinn, use the tool in the pinned threads in the Schwinn forum. It will,rake some work on your part but it’s much better than the online tool. The only way I know of to find the Sears bikes made by Murray is to look through the book “Collectable Elgin, JC Higgins, and Sears……..” it’s a compilation of catalog pages. Be aware, the numbers are not in any kind of order.
Nice, I’ll give both of those a look
 
First I have to say that the serial look up on Bicycle Org is flawed. Your serial number is under the crank, 1953 numbers were on the left rear drop out. 1951 and early bikes had the serial numbers under the crank. The number H18630 has five digits after the H. The H serial numbers for 1951 have six digits after the H.
That’s all good info to know. Somebody over on rat rod bikes said they think it’s maybe a 1953 that got stamped on the bottom bracket with a five digit number just before they switched to stamping the rear drop out but I really don’t know. That one’s a mystery to me.
 
That’s all good info to know. Somebody over on rat rod bikes said they think it’s maybe a 1953 that got stamped on the bottom bracket with a five digit number just before they switched to stamping the rear drop out but I really don’t know. That one’s a mystery to me.

The serial numbers were stamped on the drop out in the beginning of 1952 so that being a 53 stamping on the BB sounds far fetched. I still think that's an early post war piece. Some pics of the BB area would be nice after it's cleaned up a little. 😉
 
Interesting, help me out here then. When I use the Schwinn serial number tool it comes back as a 1953. I also looked up a Schwinn numbers list and it seems like it would fit that year. What makes you think it’s earlier?
There is no rear dropout, the bike has prewar rear facing forks. 1951 was the last year for numbers on the bottom of the crank bracket, if I'm assuming correctly and that's where you found the numbers.
 
There is no rear dropout, the bike has prewar rear facing forks. 1951 was the last year for numbers on the bottom of the crank bracket, if I'm assuming correctly and that's where you found the numbers.
Are you talking about a different frame? The Schwinn is post war with drop outs.

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