The Schwinn library book shelf

[rickpaulos]

I have books on bicycles.  Hum more books or bikes? I'm not counting.

I am listing here the Schwinn books.  Books about Schwinn or published by Schwinn.  Some are very limited prints so you may never find copies for sale. Others are available.

I'll start in publication order. Those that I have on hand now.  There are some that don't have publication dates so I guess on those.  I may find more in my library later on.  I invite others to add books to this thread not already listed that are Schwinn specific. There are countless books on  where to ride, bike riding, bike repair, bike racing, bike touring, bike photography, travelogues, buyers guides, bike philosophy, bike fiction and so on.  Trying to list all bike books is for another thread.  I've made a feeble attempt so shelve my books by category. I've also tried to keep a spreadsheet of my books.  I'm sure I missed some but who ever likes taking inventory.

50 Years of Schwinn Built Bicycles
1949 published by Schwinn bike company, a history of their first 50 years.
No ISBN number as those had not be invented yet.



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[rickpaulos]

Schwinn Bicycle Service Manual Vol 1 & Vol 2
published by Schwinn in 1969 to 1972.
Vol 1 mostly covers rear hubs.
My edition of Vol 2 is lacking a table of contents.

There have been similar all purpose repair books by Glenn, Zinn, Bicycling Magazine, etc.

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[rickpaulos]

1989 Schwinn Lightweight Bicycles
flip it over and you get
1989 Schwinn All Terrain Bicycles
catalog
large size catalog for $2.00
Appears to be Steve Tilford on the cover. RIP.

Not a book but it's in my library.

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[rickpaulos]

Schwinn -Built Bicycles
Super Balloon Tire Bicycles 1933 - World War II
by James Hurd $ T.A.Gordon
published in 1992 by Antique Classic Bicycle News
The most complete time line of Schwinn Built Bicycles
Includes Detailed information on:
B 10 E Motobike
Aerocycle
Cycleplane
Motorbike
Auto Cycle
Holly
DX Model
Paramount
Superior
Cycle Truck
Standard
New World.


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[rickpaulos]

No HAnds
The Rise and Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, An American Institution
by Judith Crown and Glenn Coleman
1996
ISBN 0-8050-3553-2

A history of the company including the first bankruptcy years.
The authors state they had no cooperation with the company.  I found some errors but then there are errors in most books. Now nearly 30 years later when we have a better view of what was going on in the bicycle industry then, some things are so much more obvious.  Schwinn was more a victim of the greed that has driven so much American industry to china, something Schwinn participated in, in a failed attempt to survive.  Retailers who push "low prices" are as much to blame.

Overall a very good read.

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[rickpaulos]

Schwinn Bicycles
by Jay Pridemore and Jim Hurd
1996 by Motorbooks
printed in Hong Kong
ISBN 0-7603-0127-1

German immigrant Ignaz Schwinn launched the company that bears his name in 1895 and set the bicycling standard in the U.S. for decades. Here the Black Phantom, Varsity, Paramount, and Fastback come alive through lavishly illustrated with original archival material, much of it from Chicago's Bicycle Museum of America. 250 photos, 200 in color.)

A quick overview of the Schwinn history in a very pretty publication with nice clear color photos.

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[rickpaulos]

Classic Schwinn Bicycles
by William Love
published in 2003 by Motorbooks Inc
ISBN 0-7603-1563-9

nice color photo of an AutoCycle on the cover but all the photos in the book are black & white.  Looks like the authors opinion of "Classic" is any bike that has Schwinn on it. So it includes many boring bikes.

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[rickpaulos]

the Standard Catalog of Schwinn Bicycles 1986 - 2004
By Doug Mitchel
published 2004 by kp Books
ISBN 0-87349-884-4

What really stands out in this book are the photographs.  First rate professional studio shots.
Covers more interesting Schwinns and tries to cover the full history to date which is far too much for 1 book to hope to do well.

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some tidbit in the book:

The one of a kind "GOLD Varsity"

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they spelled Jacks name wrong in the caption.  Here is his obituary. Former Schwinn dealer in Michigan.
https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/grandrapids/name/jack-heuvelhorst-obituary?id=10904530


and My Gold Varsity.

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[rickpaulos]

Schwinn-Built Bicycles Accessories - Parts 1946 1948 1952 1953
by Geoff Greene
#82 of 100
published in year I'm guessing is 2012
reproductions of 4 different years of Schwinn catalogs:
  1946 Schwinn bicycles
  1948 Schwinn Bicycles and parts
  1952 Guaranty w/Schwinn Bicycles
  1953 Schwinn Bicycles

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[rickpaulos]

Schwinn Built Heavyweights 1946 - 1964
The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Heavyweight Schwinns and Schwinn-built B.F.Goodrich Bicycles & Parts
By Geoff Green
2012, 2013
#219 of 426 copies.
ISBN 9781481872805

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rear cover, an inventory manager's nightmare.

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And more GOLD.

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Buster Brown comic book issue #34

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And later issue #42 features a ladies Corvette!


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[rickpaulos]

Schwinn Middleweight Catalog Compilation 1955-1970
by Geoff Greene
published 2012
#115 of 226 copies
ISBN 9781482041965

Consists mainly of catalog pages for Middleweight Schwinns.

Seems rather incomplete considering the Middleweights were manufactured to the closing of the Chicago factory in 1983 and beyond.  Needs a second edition with the next 14 years added on.


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[rickpaulos]

Build Your Own Klunker
How to turn your Vintage Schwinn bicycle into a 26" BMX Cruiser
2014
ISBN 978-1502783028

Highly detailed, covering every part on the conversions.

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[rickpaulos]

The Many Faces of Schwinn vol 1.
by Barry E Grey
2019
ISBN 978-1-64606-446-3

Schwinn used to be an oem manufacturer in addition to selling bikes labeled as Arnold & Schwinn.  Just like most other American bike manufacturers Huffy, AMF, Murray, etc, they provided bikes to just about any retailer or other company that wanted their own brand of bikes without having a factory to make their own bikes.  Typically the only difference was the head badge art work, decals and paint colors.  Schwinn made bikes for many hundreds of department stores, hardware stores, automotive tire companies, distributors, wholesalers, and so on.  It wasn't until Frank W Schwinn took over the company and declared that Schwinn would only sell Schwinns.  That selling as other brands undercut Schwinn's reputation. This was in 1948 so before most of us were around.

Did Schwinn keep records of all the brands they made?  Perhaps but a fire in the Chicago facility destroyed most of the records so we will never know. 

Barry Grey's sizeable book touches on some of the brands by way of head badges that he has collected.  Collecting head badges is a niche part of bike interests.  Barry's book really gets in to certain brands often with info supplied by others.  My own first exposure of badge collecting was at the Carl & Clarice Burgwardt's museum in Buffalo New York.  There were many hundreds of metal head badges, mounted like deer heads, and framed.  So many were eastern European brands that we've never heard of and are lost to unrecorded history.  I was initially appalled that so many bikes were destroyed.  I'm sure many of the Burgwardt museum badges came from bikes melted down for the war efforts.  Now, after running a bike coop for years, I have a sizeable collection of my own removed from bikes we scraped out.  Most are quite common and the bikes were nothing special like Chinese made Schwinns or Mongoose. So many new bikes have stickers instead of metal or plastic badges.

There is a collection of badges at flickr with over 7,000 photos.
https://www.flickr.com/groups/bicycleheadbadges/


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[JeffC]

Thank you Rick. This deserves it's own board.

[rickpaulos]

Schwinn The Best Present Ever
A Celebration of America's Favorite Bicycle
by Don Rauf
Published in Cooperation with Pacific Cycle and Schwinn Bikes
2017
Lyons Press

ISBN 978-1-4930-3023-6

also published as an ebook but why anyone would want a coffee table book on a phone is beyond nuts.

A nice overview of the company with all kinds of stories. Some one-off Schwinns and celebrity stories.  Biggest shortcoming is it's only 150 pages.  Could be 1000!

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