I would place the pre-bike boom Paramounts even higher. They are very respectable.
Also file marks are not the be all and end all of frame evaluation. Cinellis and Paramounts are well aligned, have stout conservative design, good machined bearing surfaces, good miters at least at the BB and good brazing. They both can have file marks..
At the time of the bike boom Schwinn got stuck with the Nixon price freeze coupled with record high demand. With a year long wait list and supposedly losing money on every bike, they couldn't raise the price, so the quality slipped a bit I suppose.
If you really look back, what generally available bike was a better deal and sounder riding investment than a Paramount? In retrospect I would have been a good decision to ante up for one when I worked in the Schwinn shop in '72.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ
> on 4/5/03 4:46 PM, Stephen Barner at steve@sburl.com wrote:
>
> > This is probably justified by the fact that Paramounts had
> > a very good reputation with the uninformed, while many bikes, while
superior
> > in workmanship, were largely underappreciated. Those chrome Nervex
curlies
> > loist their appeal when the more sophisticated eye spotted the filemarks
and
> > sloppy bike boom workmanship that too often lay underneath. . .
>
> > They compare very well against similar off-shore companies, such as
Raleigh,
> > Peugeot and Atala. In 1973, the bloom was still pretty shiny on the
> > Paramount rose, so, yes, it would be a shame to part it out, and I bet
it's
> > still a really sweet ride.
>
> Steve,
>
> This is quite an indictment of the Paramount name. Remeber that the
> Paramount history is quite a long one (starting in 1937) and includes many
> famous builders. For example, Albert Eisentraut apprenticed under Oscar
> Wastyn.
>
> Personally, I would place the quality of the Paramounts that I have been
> familiar with above most Raleighs, Peugots, and Atalas, but I'd like to
hear
> comments from others on this matter.
>
> Todd Kuzma
> Heron Bicycles
> LaSalle, IL
> http://www.heronbicycles.com/