Robert Clair recently questioned some chrome on a Paramount when he did not see it as an option in the literature. It seems that it was not too uncommon for a Paramount to appear in a color of the previous year or chrome plated even when it was not listed as an option. I have discussed this with other Paramount collectors, such as Raoul Delmire or Ed Granger and it seems examples abound. Raoul suggested that a lot of folks had an "IN" with folks at the Chicago Schwinn factories and that it was possible to get something you wanted that was not in the catalog that year if you had a bit of pull.
I know that if you were a good Schwinn dealer, you could end up with some really nice stuff from them. There was a guy named Denny who owned several Schwinn shops here in mid-Michigan who frequently ended up with stuff that was not quite available to the general public. The List Meister's prized Team track bike was one of these items.
I suspect this is how every once in a while a chrome plated Superior or something like that turns up.someone just called in a favor that Schwinn owed them, or a valued dealer was rewarded a bit. At any rate, the catalogs for any given year were not an infallible guide to what could be had.
Tom Sanders
Lansing, MI USA