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Why so many December ‘80 frames?

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OK, both my limes are HR, White & Silver are MR, as far as badges 2 are silver/no #'s, ! MR has a May 81 and other earlier than the frame so who knows how they left the factory, badges? decals?, also I did have a 83 factory White!

The frames came with a head badge, and decals.
 
MR stamp, with ‘81 badge on my chestnut Cruiser 5-

View attachment 1247856

MR stamp with ‘83 badge on my Frosty Silver King Sting-

View attachment 1247855
I believe the King Stings were made in Waterford, not Chicago. A 1983 government report states "Concurrently, Schwinn completed a manufacturing facility in Waterford, Wis., for the building of its top-of-the-line Paramount bicycle. The Waterford plant currently is also manufacturing top-of-the-line Sting brand name and BMX bicycles." I copied the relevant page and posted it in this thread (about halfway down the second page:(
 
The one thing about headbadges, is they are not absolute, since they can be removed and changed out because of the screws! But that is an interesting gap between the serial number and head badge code on the bike in the pic. And another interesting point is that I don't see a King Sting listed in the 83 catalogs, only in 81 & 82.

When I was building custom bikes back in the day, we swapped out lots of headbadges to match the colors of the accessories we put on the bikes. But in saying that, those headbadges did not have date codes on them.

For sure. I have no way of knowing if the one on my king is Original. I do know the one on the Chestnut 5 is. I didn't really intend this thread to be about MR headtubes vs badge date. Just seems like for the amount of Schwinns that have gone through my hands, a TON on MR dates have been prevalent. And it seems odd to me there are just so many. paging @Danny the schwinn freak


I believe the King Stings were made in Waterford, not Chicago. A 1983 government report states "Concurrently, Schwinn completed a manufacturing facility in Waterford, Wis., for the building of its top-of-the-line Paramount bicycle. The Waterford plant currently is also manufacturing top-of-the-line Sting brand name and BMX bicycles." I copied the relevant page and posted it in this thread (about halfway down the second page:(

Oh absolutely. I'm very aware of the unique qualities of the King Sting. Was simply sharing another MR headtube stamp. I have two more cruiser 5's currently, I'll try to get a look at their serials this weekend.

I am just trying to nail down why there seems to be such a disproportionate amount of Dec '80 serials. It can't just be a coincidence that I've had/found soooo many MR serials.
 
Of the many Schwinns I’ve owned over the years, at least 15 have been MR head-tubed frames. Some had badge dates not long after December of 1980, but some had dates that were quite a bit after that. Never really thought about it until I bounced it off of @Dizzle Problems. between the two of us, we’ve had quite a few. It’s weird and I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Surely someone knows it. Lol.
 
Of the many Schwinns I’ve owned over the years, at least 15 have been MR head-tubed frames. Some had badge dates not long after December of 1980, but some had dates that were quite a bit after that. Never really thought about it until I bounced it off of @Dizzle Problems. between the two of us, we’ve had quite a few. It’s weird and I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Surely someone knows it. Lol.

It does seem strange that there seems to be a good amount of the MR dated frames out there because the Schwinn factory was shut down in a labor strike during that time. So who was in the factory making these frames???? But the one thing I do know from being in the business during that time, is the Cruiser bikes were a hot commodity at the time, the demand was very high for the bikes, and we sold a ton of them. 1980 was the transitional year when the Cruiser name was introduced on the bike, after the 77-79 Spitfire years. So all of that being said, it is well documented that the Schwinn company was in troubled waters after the strike, and was circling the toilet bowl until the Chicago factory eventually started to shut down in the 82 & 83 years, with June of 83 being the last date I have seen documented for the factory closure. The owner of my shop was very good friends with our sales rep. and in hindsight, I am sure he had the inside information on the troubles Schwinn was in at the time, and he sold the shop in early 82. I worked for the new owners until June of 82.
 
For sure. I have no way of knowing if the one on my king is Original. I do know the one on the Chestnut 5 is. I didn't really intend this thread to be about MR headtubes vs badge date. Just seems like for the amount of Schwinns that have gone through my hands, a TON on MR dates have been prevalent. And it seems odd to me there are just so many. paging @Danny the schwinn freak




Oh absolutely. I'm very aware of the unique qualities of the King Sting. Was simply sharing another MR headtube stamp. I have two more cruiser 5's currently, I'll try to get a look at their serials this weekend.

I am just trying to nail down why there seems to be such a disproportionate amount of Dec '80 serials. It can't just be a coincidence that I've had/found soooo many MR serials.
I have to agree, there seems to be a LOT of bikes with the MR serials, especially given there was a strike at the time. But I've never had a King Sting, and it's interesting that they used a (slightly) different location for the serial. There's a frame on Ebay right now with another MR serial in the same location as yours.
1597838371851.png

1597838475032.png
 
I have to agree, there seems to be a LOT of bikes with the MR serials, especially given there was a strike at the time. But I've never had a King Sting, and it's interesting that they used a (slightly) different location for the serial. There's a frame on Ebay right now with another MR serial in the same location as yours.
View attachment 1250510
View attachment 1250511


Interesting! That yellow head badge sure looks like crap on that. :tonguewink:
MR826493.........On that eBay frame
MR826490..........On Dizzel's frame

Both stamped on the left side so it looks like that was intentional.

About the strike. It's been "said" that an estimated 1400 assembly workers walked off the job for thirteen weeks. That doesn't mean all the workers walked off the job and it's not mentioned how many were still working. So what's their definition of assembly workers? Does that include frame builders, wheel builders, and everyone that actually made the parts? After the strike it's said Schwinn only hired back 65% (910?) of the workers. Were those just the ones that walked off the job and not the ones that did not walk off the job and stayed and were still working? In 1983 Schwinn shuts down the Chicago plant and lays off 1800 workers.
The strike definitely crippled Schwinn's Chicago production, but it did not shut everything down in Chicago for 13 weeks. At this time there was no Union in the Schwinn household so some production of finished products could have continued but in very small quantities.
 
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I have to agree, there seems to be a LOT of bikes with the MR serials, especially given there was a strike at the time. But I've never had a King Sting, and it's interesting that they used a (slightly) different location for the serial. There's a frame on Ebay right now with another MR serial in the same location as yours.

Interesting about the serial number placement on the King Stings. My 82 has the "MR" serial number stamped almost dead center on the front of the frame!

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