To a lot of 12-year-olds in the 1960s and 1970s, the Schwinn Sting-Ray was the coolest thing since sliced bread. With its banana seat and hi-rise handlebars, when you were riding your Sting-Ray bicycle you were King (or Queen) of the Hill. And among those bikes, the Krate may be the Holy Grail and the seller has amassed eight of them that will only be solid as a group, From Chesapeake, Virginia, this assortment of Schwinns is available here on Facebook Marketplace for $24,000 OBO. Thanks for this cool non-car tip, Chuck Foster!
The Schwinn Bicycle Co. dates to 1895, so it was already a well-established business when they brought out the original Sting-Ray in 1963 (like the car name?). Market research told them that kids liked to customize their bikes to look like motorcycles, so 20-inch wheels, elongated seats, rear “sissy bars,” and ape hanger handlebars became part of the package. The Sting-Ray quickly became the bestselling bike in Schwinn’s history.
Five years later, the most memorable edition of Sting-Ray debuted – the Krate – whose name was borrowed from a popular dragster as that was the look Schwinn was going after. What made the bike stand out was the unique stick shift mounted on the top tube, right between the seat and the handlebars. All sorts of “schweet” colors would come out for the Krate and the seller’s collection seems to cover most of them.
The seller has been collecting these bikes for more than 20 years. They’re in nice condition, and some are restored while others are original. They’re set up as 5-speeds and have four disc brakes. The color assortment represented includes Apple Krate, Orange Krate, Lemon Peeler, Pee Picker, Gray Ghost. Cotton Picker, Krome Krate, and Grape Krate. The latter may never have entered production, so this may either be a prototype or a clone.
As the seller will not break up the set, he/she is throwing in a special rack to carry them wherever you go. Before you say, “is he crazy for wanting $3,000 a piece for these bikes?”, go check out the listings on eBay. Some of these real-deal Schwinns can go for some serious money. Maybe these would be great for the Man Cave which already has everything else!
Had an Apple Crate back in the late 70’s – traded it to a neighbor kid for a bag of fireworks…oh well. About fifteen years ago, I lucked into a mint-condition blue ’68 StingRay 5-speed at a yard sale for $20.00. It for sure eased the pain of losing the Krate.
That’s my idea of a retirement plan – store,& then haul
these from car show to car show,never letting kids get too close
to them out of fear that they wouldn’t all be perfect anymore.
I’d much rather spend that kind of money on one (or more)
vehicles that I could drive & enjoy.
Do you really think kids are going to car shows? Maybe if Granpa dragged them in to one.
Exactly, Frank. I see very few young people at a car show anymore. / I was a kid in London during the early 60s, we didn’t have anything like this, but when I got to the states in 69 they were all over. I remember meeting one kid in the early 70s that told me how much he wanted one, and asked why, he said the most popular kid in school had one, and if he had one too, he would also be popular. Oh, the mind of a 10 year old. The way I saw it was, these were status symbols of the preteens in those days , and even the kids understood status. I pointed out to this kid that cheaper brands, like Huffy, made similar bikes at a much more parent friendly price, but he said all the other kids would know it was a “fake”. Same with many car brands and adults, no difference there at all. Sometimes I worry about society as a whole.
I got nothing, there bicycles! Sure some people collect them but then I really think you can have too many Stingray bicycles.
I am almost there, just a couple more! :)
These are not just bicycles they’re super limited edition very rare bicycles that not many people got not many were produced and if you can get them in mint condition they’re worth a lot of money these days
My best buddy and I owned sting-rays in 1967. I had the blue one and he bought the green version. No fenders. I still have mine. I lent it to my cousins and they may have changed the seat post, but other than that it’s 100% original, though the tires and tubes are rotted. I contacted Schwinn to see if they had original tires. My rear was a flat slick I haven’t found yet, and the front was the brick style tire which is available. The paint job is pretty nicked up as expected but I shined the chrome with aluminum foil…
Initially, in true BFs fashion, I bet just about everyone flashed back to THEIR “Sting-Ray” type bikes, many simply their old Murray 20 incher with seat and bars. Then ,for me, quickly squelched by what I consider a true American “hosing”. I’m appalled at this. It takes greed to a new level. It’s not a GTO, it’s a freakin’ bicycle for heavens sake. You know, for a kid? Who is going to come up with that kind of money, especially a kid. Can you imagine the joy of some kid getting one of these? Sorry, kid, isn’t going to happen. Terrible, you want to bilk your millionaire buddies, that’s fine, but,,,hey, leave them kids alone,,,
Yes Howard you are absolutely correct. (and nice pun)
And I remember us cutting off the forks of my Schwinn to allow smashing on pipe extensions, EasyRider was the big influence back then!!
Oh Man, when those extensions came off it was an exciting moment!!!!
Let’s see. Baseball cards. Comic books. Vintage toys. Model trains. Etc. Etc. Etc. Seems like all the best, most expensive collectibles can be traced to kids. Cars are the exception it seems
A rare instance where i almost agree with H.A. ..
wow
YET
as is with any vintage, desirable item, there are collectors. Some collections are full of “scrap” and some the choicest examples. So, not just bicycles, but quality, US made, fuctional art; like most of the vintage cars were all on here to find or just ogle.
The value of such an item, is up to not the peanut gallery but the enthusiast, or the one looking for one; and so this barn find culture goes round.
The ghost and cotton bikes have been big dollar bikes since back when was into them, so 3k for a ghost in mint condition might actually be a good deal.
3k for a grey ghost or cotton picker is a steal. Any of them bikes with the disc brake will get 3k easy. I invested 2200 (after taxes and shipping) on a 68 apple with the wrong seat just to have it
Being a 1974 model myself, by the time I was that age everyone wanted a BMX bike. That was when BMX was literally bicycle motocross, on a hilly dirt circle track just without an engine rather than skatepark tricks on a bike (get off my lawn!) so more like what would become a mountain bike in the ’90s up to today.
Greed? This is a collection of rare items up for sale. Why shame the seller by implying he is depriving some kid of a bike? What’s more appalling, the asking price for this collection or the asking prices of rare musclecar collections we’ve seen? Couldnt the majority of the readers here claim foul for being enticed because they could never afford a Hemi Cuda?
If any kid wants to experience the joy of owning one of these types of bikes they are out there…. and if he doesn’t have the funds maybe the parents could encourge him to work, earn and save up the money to obtain one. And who knows, learning such a lesson early in life just may lead to having that same bike on display in his garage later in life…along with his Hemi Cuda. Peace
Maybe a Collector will buy them & let some kids ride them? 1st Sting-Ray was a New Blue 65 with 2-speed kick back coaster. Later got a 64 Coppertone. Then a light green Murray & a Chrome Spyder. Last 2 got stolen, sold 65. Have most all krates, wound up getting those when looking for early models. Favorites are the 64 & 65 J-33’s. Bikes are fun to work on & build when you get older. Keep a row of Sting-Rays in back of my 68 Camaro Blown 468 Pro Street, like 1st Gens, but got a New Camaro last month..
Yep, I had a Lemon Peeler, and I was indeed the coolest guy around. It was fun but I don’t miss it $3000.00 worth.
Early ’80s we needed a pit bike to move around the narrow spaces between race cars at autocross events. Looked at bikes like the Sting-Ray but there wasn’t any way to haul the items we needed for Tech inspections and the narrow seat wasn’t going to fit our ever expanding sitting mechanisms. Found a girl’s 20 inch frame in a neighbor’s leaf pile, started welding and came up with a bike that’s been in our race car trailer ever since. Narrow “T” go cart push handle, some aluminum tubing, a file box and a “fat man’s” seat and we were in business.
I still have my 1968 Rollfast Skat 5 gold colored stingray. That was a workhorse for my paper routes for about 5 years in the early 70’s. I used to wash and wax it when I was a kid, and even painted the whitel letters on the Sears Allstate replacement tires. Next bike was a 1973 Sears Ted Williams white 10-speed. Still have that too!
Good for you Johnny!! I can picture that bike
When I was around 12, I really wanted a Stingray bike, but my parents insisted my (boring, but fairly new) bike was all I needed.
I decided to “customize” mine, and make it like a Stingray. I added a “banana seat”, “monkey bars”, and a smaller front wheel.
This was my first foray into customizing vehicles, and I apparently failed to grasp the theory of how to properly tighten fasteners……At first the loose handlebars caused to steering issues. Then there was a catastrophic failure when the loose front axle allowed the wheel to depart during a wheelie. This caused a sidewalk face-plant.
About then I decided that Stingray bikes were Not cool.
When I was 12, I had a fake Stingray that I sprayed banana yellow. Living in a rural Minnesota town, there wasn’t a lot to do for fun, so I’d spend hours doing wheelies. After awhile, the grooves for tightening the handlebars to the fork got stripped, so I had the handlebars welded to the frame. This lasted for a few days, until I was doing a wheelie, and the handlebars totally snapped off, which caused me to somersault over the front of the bike.
My sister got a grape krate for Christmas one year when she was probably about 12 or 13 which would have made me 8 or 9. Even at that age I was her mechanic and I remember I had patched her front tube for her and we took off for a test ride. I was riding along beside her egging her on to pop a wheelie and when she did, the wheel fell off and she went over the handlebars getting a pretty bad injury. She swore that I sabotaged her bike out of jealousy because I didn’t get a krate lol. I was jealous but didn’t leave her wheel loose on purpose. I still got a whoopin for it so she eventually got over it.
Warms my heart to know I was not the only one to face plant into the concrete.
The face plant was very painful when the seat hit you in the back of the head. Broken nose, right cheek bone, 2 front teeth with braces, left inner elbow ground down with stones inserted in would. I still remember it well and I will be 71 in March. But ‘IT WAS FUN”
Price is a little high. Depending on some options, like a disc brake or original rear slick, they go for about $2000 to $2500 each. The market peaked about 15 years ago. Big money now is in 80’s BMX bikes. If you think this is too much for “just a kids bike” check out on ebay what a Cook Brothers Cruiser goes for!
The Grape Krate is a custom fantasy build. Never offered from Schwinn so not worth as much as the others. Same for the Khrome Krate.
Schwinn went retro after their first bankruptcy, they did a small run ( less than 2000) of Grape “Krates” as a dealer promo event. I also have one. I was a Schwinn dealer at the time. Not as cool as the original versions. I also have two of the reproduction Black Phantoms.
Replying to 02Chuck. Makes me wonder how many of theses are repos. Good for wall hangers but little else. Collectors dont want them. If you walk into my LBS with a Reproduction Krate, the cash offer is $50 for the rear slick and $50 for the rest of the bike.
I got the 99 Repro Grape Krate & 98 Orange & Apple Krates to Hang Out with the Original Krates.
The Krate stingray was one of the first impressions I had of class differences and consumerism. I really wanted one. The kids that rode them were cool. But you literally need to be wealth to buy one and our family had none, with a capital N. But I “wanted” one. At the time I didn’t get the marketing behind the desire. My bike wasn’t a Krate, or even a Stingray, or even a Schwinn. It was a no name,rattle can paint, cast off nothing. But I did put on a ape hangers to hang my newspaper delivery bags on and a banana seat.
Not seeing the value here so I guess I’m numb to consumerism now. $3000.00 or even a fraction of that just seems stupid. On the other hand my health insurance costs that per month, so what is more stupid???
Worked my paper route in 72 and was able to fork up half the cash for an orange Krate with stick shift, rear slick with letters and an orange metal flake seat. Mom and dad forked up the rest of the dough and that was my Christmas in 73. I was the coolest kid in town as I could sit in the seat and ride wheelies all over the place. Nobody could understand but I had a front and rear hand brake. When coming back too far I’d simply squeeze the rear brake to stay balanced.
Great memories, always wanted one as a kid. My godmother did give me a Schwinn Speedster for birthday in 1968.
$3,000 a piece? I can think of three thousand other things to spend my money on!
I had a red, white and blue Sting Ray when I was a kid and as many kids did, I beat it pretty hard on driveway jumps, etc. It always came back for more and I never really damaged it other than wheels being very-slightly out of round I suppose. I didn’t have a BMX bike like some but I acted like I did.
It was fully functional when we sold it and that bike was one of many things I now see, with the benefit of hindsight, that I should have kept. Oh well!
The bike I had before the Schwinn was a hand-me-down model from my older sister when she outgrew it but the cool part was, it was convertible from girls’ to boys’ style, just using hand tools. I guess my parents planned well when they got that bike for her. I wish I could remember the make and model. Anybody?
Lothar,
I also had a hand-me-down from my sister. It was a red 20 inch Sears bike. It was not a Stingray. It had a “boys bar” that could be put on as needed.
Johnny-
Sears was huge back then and this little bike was red too… maybe Sears is from where it came. I used to love the old Sears catalog.
I’ll ask my family and see if they remember and report back if anyone does.
Help! I’m being inundated with ads (7 on this post alone). How do I get rid of them?
@Steve – You could signup as a member. They enjoy ad-free browsing. Thanks!
Yep, I had a Huffy Slingshot 3 clone of the Schwinn Krate. Loved it!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/shaZ-8oF_RY/maxresdefault.jpg
I had an Orange Krate. My brother brought it home in a box and put it together for me. Some years later i had a hard time keeping up with the new 10 and 12 speeds. I changed the sprockets and converted it to a 10 speed. LOL no problem keeping up then.. Sadly it went into storage and got auctioned off when my father didn’t pay for it.
It’s us old dudes trying to relive the 60s. My parents could not afford a Krate like the neighbor kid had. I was mowing lawns at age 12 in 1968, but dad said no even with my own $100. He called me a big shot. So, I bought a Schwinn black cruiser. He knew I would want a car in four short years and told me to save for that. I did. Bought a Marina Blue on blue 66 Chevelle convertible for $400. Dad was right and today approaching my 67th year, I am very comfortable money wise, but still have a 50 year old Corvette in my garage.
Cotton Picker? Are you kidding me? I know times have changed, but that doesn’t seem like it ever would have been a great idea. It and the grey ghost apparently didn’t sell well, so are the rarest.
I myself had a lemon peeler I bought off my brothers friend for $20. That was a great bike. I have no idea what happened to it, but I do wish I had it today.
Nostalgia is amazing
Never had a sting ray (other that the C8 sitting in my garage today) but in 1954 I bought a new Schwinn Corvette for my paper route. It was about the coolest bike a guy could have back then. Chrome fenders, 2 speed rear hub and the “new” 1.75 tires.
I am hoping the model mentions is “PEA” Picker, rather than Pee Picker.
That was the overseas knockoff version.
If you’re replying to me, mine was no knockoff, it was a Schwinn.
Got one in 64, when I was 7years old, silver and chrome, white banana seat w/red flame, 3spd w/twist grip handlebar shifter, wish I’d hung on to it.
I had one of these as a kid. I left it on the front lawn once and my mom was on the rag and put it out for the trash and they took it…yup. That and selling my 91 Bronco for $500 are the ones that hurt.
Tommy-
Just because you CAN say something does not mean you always should.
Just a little off color joke (remember those?)
I know on Amazon they sell new reproductions, i think they are around $700.
I cant emphasize or capitalize enough :
F#CK amazon !
For all the right reasons, buy your cheap crap somewhere else, or simply from the manufacturer .
Yet we lament the loss of Sears, hmmm i wonder why its gone ?..
or healthy middle class..
or respectable living wage
US made goods
Everytime one buys from amazon, or its predecessor walmart, buys nails for the coffin .
Its up to us folks
money is power, power to the people
WE the people !
Where did the quality, US made, Schwinns go ?
hmmm, ? the cheap import knock offs !
Or ya: but but i need to get a cheap, plastic, made in china spatula; delivered on a Sunday
your call
Thank you. 100% right. It is up to each and every one of us to stop this runaway train. We owe our own kids a much better future than this. They sold out the entire country from underneath us and we’re complicit.
Has this nation no pride anymore? No self-preservation instinct? No concern about the abyss into which we’ve been led directly into? The first thing to do is stop supporting this. The second thing to do is stop voting for this.
Plenty of critics here about the Schwinn Sting-Ray Krate bikes, and it appears to be from those who either never had, or never rode on one. Christmas of 1970 was a turning point for my younger brother & I after Santa gifted us each a Krate of choice. I was 10 and my brother was 9, I received a Pea Picker and my brother a Lemon Peeler, and that particular Christmas season the weather was unseasonably warm here in PA with temps in the 50’s. Needless to say, the neighborhood kids, at the time, either envied us, while the others trashed talked us just like jealous kids do when they can’t have the same. I and my brother still have our bikes to this day, and just like a Harley rider, take them out the first nice day of spring. Yep, these were the Cadillac of bicycles back in the day and the listing is already gone!
Weren’t these the bikes you clipped a Mickey Mantle baseball card to the spokes to get the “exhaust” sound?
I did this too, experimented with different plastic from milk jugs etc to get that perfect sound …lol
I still have my 66 Schwinn Fastback Stingray. I bought it on October 31,1966 at age 12 as a birthday gift for myself. Passed newspapers and worked at our Texaco to earn the money for it.
Bruce – My brother and I both had several paper routes and worked at our Texaco station too. He’s got his 67 Camaro RSSS350, and I have my 68 Barracuda. Both of those were acquired while we worked at that Texaco station in the late 70’s/1981.
Our station was in Knightstown Indiana, where the movie Hoosiers was shot. I got into doing restorations in 1973. First complete resto was a 54 Corvette. Did mostly Vettes but did several Fords and other GMs. Its great you kept your cars.
We saw this guy & his collection a few weeks ago at a car show in Va Beach. My son took pix. His snap of the white “Cotton Picker” got flagged for ‘Hate Speech’ by the parent/kid monitoring app on his phone. Go figure.
Too bad you can’t see me rolling my eyes…
Thus is ridiculous! What a shame.
I had a black n chrome 3 spd. With the stick shift on the ball bar. I can recall the brand but we referred to them as spider bikes…
😆
but I.B. , we ought protect their emotions and enable them to continue the bliss of denial ..
Its like this tacoma thing with all the US flag stickers and the DOT lights in the grill ?!
sigh
insane indeed
When I was around 11 or 12, I made a chopper bike out of all the recycled parts from bikes that I found in the trash. My Father was never very handy mechanically, so I was on my own. I cut the forks off of a 26 inch bicycle with a hacksaw and had a friend weld them( upside down ) on my 20 inch bike. This gave the bike a super long and high front end like Easy Rider!
Man! We did this! Rode to the dump with my dad and cut forks off old bikes. Couldn’t weld so we just bashed them on with a hammer. I think 3 or 4 fork lengths long. That front wheel was waaaay out there! Seemed so cool. Didn’t actually steer, but that didn’t matter.
Kids today don’t get to do any of this stuff. So sad.
yep, I found a scrap fork, cut the legs off and put them on my bike [not a Krate] I remember not being able to get them tight enough and soon removed them, but the chopper want was strong, by the time I was 18 I had owned 2 street bikes, left the bicycles behind till my 30’s and discovered mt biking …. now I enjoy picking up the frames I couldn’t afford from those days and building them up, then I sell/donate them to my local cat rescue to help them out
They did not have disc brakes. They had a drum brake on the front wheel and calipers on the back. I worked at a Schwinn store back then and whenever we’d put a unicycle together, we’d try to ride it in the warehouse until someone got hurt.
The 1972 and 1973 5 speed Krates came with a rear disc brake. The rim and brake assembly alone are selling for 1250-2500 on ebay currently.
I got a rock.
Lol. That always made me sad for Old Chuck.
Those bikes are all sweet, but if I had $24K to spend I’d go for that ’54 Ford in the background in the second scene.
Early 70s i got a purple sears stingray -I found the frame awhile back and banana seat .Loved that bike.I was so sad wwhen grampa was loading is all of us into the car for the ride home–The bike wont fit!!! I was told that the bike stayed behind(i honesty contemplated riding it home but 60 mi would have been long).Gramps brought in less than a week-mane i was happy. Found it about 10 years ago.
I had an Apple Crate that I purchased with my paper route money in 1970. I left it behind my Fathers Cop Car and he ran it over when he got a call in the middle of the night. Lesson learned…great bike.
Had a cotton picker for Christmas one year had to be 72 or so , never really thought about anything racist with that name and my many ethnic
friends didnt either ? Boy our world is getting weirder and weirder !
My sister and I got Murray Wildcats in
the spring of ’66. And while they weren’t Stingrays, we were still the envy of our neighborhood as all the
other kids were riding second hand stuff except for a kid named Clifford
Thoennes, who had a 3 speed Sting
Ray with a 3 speed sprocket and some kind of spring suspension above the front forks. My Wildcat
served me well until I outgrew it. After that, I got a 26 inch Schwinn
with a coaster brake. That was
before I found and built my ’54
Studebaker but that’s another story.
And now, here I am at 68, saving my
pennies to buy a new Schwinn Meridian adult trike with electric assist. How ’bout it Santa, I’ve been
a good boy this year. Just ask my
SIL and neice LOL.
I forgot what model Schwinn bike I had (well the first one) when i was a little kid…..but we did convert it into a StingRay. it was red, like a little red wagon, lol
By putting a black banana seat and the chopper handlebars on it. And this was in the mid to late 1960’s before the Krate was introduced.
My first true love…..my chopped Schwinn, little red bike.
I still have my base model Stingray that I bought new in 1966. I had a new rear tire put on it and it still rides like I remember. It hasn’t been restored but I cleaned and polished it and it is a nice survivor quality bike.
Curreys bike shop sold these when we were kids….of course mom and dad had three kids that needed glasses and braces, so we got Murray’s finest lol.
I had a yellow banana seat bike with a slick..traded it for a krate type bike with the rams horn bars and a small front wheel, with the 5 speed stick on the top bar, but his dad made him trade it back, oh well, after starting little league baseball I got a 10speed from sears to ride the 2 miles to the ball field because dad worked nights and mom didn’t get home in time to take me.
riding home in the dark 2 miles up a 2 lane road to my dead end street would be out of the question these days
When I was 12 years old, back in the 70s, I got my first Schwinn Cotton Picker bicycle. It was not new. It was a hand me down bicycle. It was rusty, squeaky, and the paint was shot, but it was a mostly complete bicycle. I just loved shifting through all the 5 gears as I rode down the street. I was so amazed by this bicycle that as I got older I decided I wanted to have more of these Schwinn Krate bicycles. Because of this inner passion I have, I have restored Schwinn Cotton Pickers, Pea Pickers, Lemon Peelers, Orange and Apple Krate bicycles and, of course, the legendary Grey Ghost bicycles. To all of you naysayers out there. Who would spend $50,000 for a 1957 Chevy two-door hardtop? Number of people in this world that will spend 50,000 for that car. It is a perfect example of beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The same thing goes with these Krate type bicycles. A lot of people loves these bicycles and they are willing to pay $2000, $3000 and even $5000 for these bicycles, depending on the condition of bicycle and what accessories comes with it.
Thanks Don Juan, right there with you. These are Nice & it is Very Satisfying to Restore them. Last one I did was a blue 65 Super Deluxe got off eBay, everything was incorrect! Stripped to bare metal, did everything to it Completely Correct and it turned out Really Nice.
OK! Who had a Sissy Bar and Wheelie Bars on their Sting Ray
I got an advance on my allowance to buy a sissy bar from one of the older neighbor kids…it went on my Murray, but i soon grew tired of it…who knew?
Always wanted a Chopper Stingray back in the days as a teenager. I did have an Apollo 5 speed in Black as a 6th grade graduation gift from my parents in 1978 I Loved that bike I changed the back bar to a long Stingray style bar. Put streamers on the ends of the handlebars, put long mult-color reflectors on the tire rim spokes, my father bought me a security system where once I turn it on it continuously beeps loudly once someone sits on the seat Ha! I put a horn and side view mirrors on it too. Everyone complimented my Apollo then the frame broke after making too many wheelies and ramp jumps. My father got it welded at the bike shop then it broke again. Ultimately I aged out of it anyway and it was time for pick-up by city sanitation. Now that’s a serious Stingray collector, I could never have that many Apollo 5 speeds.
I like the look of the Apollo as much as the Krate. The double bars that fit the console shifter looked so cool. As evidenced by this picture.
There were a couple of them kicking around my neighborhood, but I was like most kids – got the cheap knockoff. But I really didn’t care, that was the best Christmas gift ever.
Yeah I agree the Apollo was an attractive bike which is why I wanted one other than the stingray chopper. I like that photo you posted looks similar to the one I had as I added on the sissy pole replacing the original pole among other accessories as I stated. What was the “knockoff” may I ask?
Keith D.: I don’t remember the brand and I can’t find any pictures of it, unfortunately. It was gold with the 3 speed stick shifter. It had a gold banana seat with white stripes.
Schwinns cost more but the frame and fork were guaranteed for life. They didn’t care how it happened, the got replaced for free. The rims were pretty much bulletproof, too.
Does anyone remember a car getting this many responses?
Cars are dime a dozen ;<}
I was thinking the same thing
And only a few comments about politics and the state of the union.
So far.
Nothing wrong with a little versatility on BF. I was getting bored of the variety of Chevrolets listed every week but if that’s what was the “finds” for the week then so be it. No complaints out of me so why are a lot of people criticizing and posting sarcastic comments ie: “State of The Union”. We’re not gonna see a huge roll out of old bicycle postings on here so wait until tomorrow when the next barn find Corvette shows up then comment away!
Don’t forget Mopar and early Broncos🤣
Oops! Forget about those too Ha!…Thanks!
I have two blue 1964 Super Sports -Schwinn Super Sports!
I have a 1976 Schwinn Fastback in pristine original survivor condition with original tires including rear slick, checkered racing mirror and the original Wisconsin dealer and ’76 registration tags still on the frame. It’s a beauty of a metallic blue Chicago built American treasure which cannot ever be duplicated. By ’76 they had replaced the stick shift with a more conventional handlebar mounted gearchange, but it hardly takes away from the specialness of this bike. When we lost our great American manufacturing, we lost much more than just jobs. American Pride went with it. We better start fixing this sinking ship that is the USA before we’re all…
sunk
Idiot Boy, you are so correct with your comments concerning what we’ve lost.
Thank you, Gary. I struggle not to get censored or banned wherever I go for lamenting this travesty. Time we all start pulling our heads out of the politically correct (quick)sand. It’s sweet to live in the past, but the present is an affront to our once-proud nation and the future is looking mighty grim unless we start talking about what’s wrong and actively doing something about it. Ain’t nobody gonna fix it for us.
Merry Christmas!
Hey IB, we both shared some great comments on a car some time ago, and we both made comments worthy of publication, but your closing comment was excellent, and BFs erased both our comments.
Theyve done that a few times to both of us.
Ive been saving comments, and got to save your comment =)
Id like to get it to you somehow, maybe post it again at a agreed apon time for you to get a copy too; if you didnt aleady.
It needs to be posted in public squares and community boards all across our beautiful country.
I think we could start a great pod cast.
Hope you find this comment
Ok sure for that price you could find plenty of nice cars to put in the driveway. But I remember being maybe 10 years old ,the kid 3 houses down had one of these a purple one I think. I was in awe of him .Wow and the shifter on the crossbar .I could only look and pretend it was just ok my Dad would never ever buy something like that. We always got the used bikes and repainted them. Guess that is why I am so cheap today.
A friend of mine had the Schwinn. I had 2 Raleigh Apollo’s. One a red boys frame and the other a blue girls frame with the single tube frame from seat to handlebars. I loved those bikes.
Just saw this interested in buying a whole set. I assume it’s already sold by now. If you have any leads of who bought them, I will pay more than 24,000 for them.
and there ya go folks, for all those walmart shoppers talking smack on the seller and the values.. theres a buyer right there .
As for the Grape Crate, ghost, etc..
ya, if you didnt know, know ya know
A decent Schwinn Krate goes for a minimum of $1500, and these bikes look perfect, so this collection is probably priced exactly right. If the Grape Krate in the collection is a prototype, there are only supposedly 15 in the world, so who knows what the Grape Krate is worth.
These are not just bicycles they’re super limited edition very rare bicycles that not many people got not many were produced and if you can get them in mint condition they’re worth a lot of money these days. I was always very jealous of anybody that owned one of those. The nearest thing I had was a yellow Schwinn Stingray with a black banana seat many Ape Hanger handlebars as they were called Butterfly handlebars back in the day had a high back sissy bar on it and a slick on the back. It was an amazing bike but it was no krate bike. Unfortunately now I just don’t have the money to buy one otherwise I would get one so my grand kid has one
Last one I bought was maybe 8-10 years ago? Lemon Disc Krate, Great Condition, I found it, & I was sick bad, really cold out, but jumped in truck & went to buy it anyway, glad I did, Think it cost about $1,200?