O.K. ,
I HOPE I do not make anyone angry. I HOPE I do not irritate anyone. I like you folks. But . . . Let us stick to the FACTS here.
Schwinn changed the Paramounts , totally , completely , sometime in 1959. So the changes were all fully in place for the 1960 Paramounts. For 1960, the tubing was still English, but was changed to Reynolds. Dropouts were changed to Campagnolo. Lugs switched from "keyhole style" to Nervex Professional. The folks at Schwinn played around just a little with the lugs, and bottom bracket shell, right around 1969. But other than that, the basic set of steel from which the bicycles were built STAYED the SAME from late 1959 through 1979 . Amazing!
There were two basic frame geometries, with a couple of variants on each. But that is another story.
The way the stays and fork blades were finished at the dropouts changed. But that is another story.
The steel parts from which the frame-sets were made stayed the same for twenty years.
However, there seems to have been one , ONE , change made to the seat stays. They began the 1960's with seat stays that measured 12.5 mm in diameter, at the upper end. However, throughout the ENTIRE decade of the 1970's, they used seat stays that measured 16 mm in diameter, at the upper end.
Sometime during the 1960's , they switched from 12.5 mm stays , to 16 mm stays .
They changed, once. That is all. Unless we turn up new hard evidence of FACTS.
Here is what I can tell you about my Paramounts (roughly a dozen) :
The upper ends of the seat stays, near the seat lug, where the ends of the stay are cut on a slant, are NOT perfectly round. If you want accurate measurements, measure more than once, and move the caliper around a little bit. I used a precision electronic digital readout caliper. I measured up near the slanted end cap, but not too close to the edge of the end cap. The figures hovered right around 12.5 mm for the earlier ones, and 16 mm for the later ones.
When I was first asked about all of this, I began by measuring the end caps. Since these frames were built to be sized by the inch, I measured the end caps in inches. I knew the older Paramounts had smaller end caps. I thought it was because the "angle" or the "bevel" was different. WRONG. I was wrong. The angle is close enough to exactly the same. The bevel is close enough to exactly the same. The difference is the seat stays themselves are different! Since the seat stay is THICKER, the seat stay cap has to be LARGER. Once I realized the seat stays were actually a different diameter, I stopped measuring the seat stay caps.
But, here's what I measured :
Small seat stay caps are less than an inch long, almost exactly 15/16 of an inch.
Large seat stay caps are more than an inch long, approximately 1 1/4 inch. The ones I measured were NOT precisely made, and ranged from 1 3 /16 inch, to 1 1/4 inch, to a full 1 3/8 inch. Basically these larger ones are roughly 1 1/4 inch long, each measured through thier mid-line.
with Small seat stay caps were Paramounts with build dates of early January 1961 full chrome late August 1963 full chrome
with Large seat stay caps were Paramounts with build dates of early September 1966 1972 painted 1973 painted 1973 full chrome 1973 Ladies painted 1974 Track painted 1977 painted
The All Chrome from the 1970's was just exactly the same as any of the painted ones from the 1970's.
CHROME MAKES NO DIFFERENCE HERE .
Chrome plating is slightly thinner, and slightly slippery-er, than paint. But that is not important here.
Yes, we know that the frames which were going to be fully chrome plated were supposed to be put together with just a little more care, by some of the more experienced people. That makes sense. If somebody gets sloppy with the silver solder, or the brass brazing, or cleaning up the lugs, whatever . . . Sloppy work CAN be repaired, or covered up, or just ignored, much more easily on a painted frame! Sloppy work is much more difficult, maybe impossible, to repair, or cover up, or just ignore, on a fully chrome plated frame!
So, the frames to be chrome plated were supposed to be put together NEAT and TIDY. That way there was less mess to clean up! Chrome does not hide sloppy work very well!
But the chrome frames were MADE of the SAME steel parts. There is no mystery here, no mystery at all.
Now then, I mentioned measuring the seat stay caps. Please FORGET the seat stay caps for a moment. They are just secondary. What really happened is they CHANGED the seat STAYS .
Sometime, between late August 1963, and early September 1966, Schwinn changed to slightly larger diameter seat stays on the Paramounts.
When ?
That is my question.
When ?
Get out the precision calipers. Measure carefully, several times. Check your serial number. I can provide serial numbers from my bicycles for anybody who cares. Stick to the FACTS .
We have enough frames out there to pin this down, if we want to pin this down.
And PLEASE, don't tell me that something is true because you think you might remember looking at some bad photo of some Paramount on eBay whose owner claims it was made in some certain year.
If you have not looked up the serial number, you do not know when that frame-set was made.
I have corresponded with many folks on eBay, and asked for serial numbers. When I have looked up the serial numbers, the seller was wrong more than half the time, sometimes very, very wrong.
If you do not know the serial number for an absolute fact, then you don't know when the frame-set was made.
Cheers,
Raoul Delmare
Marysville Kansas
U.S.A.