This chart applies to chicago schwinn`s only.----- serial number location: numbers are now located on the lower left of the headtube (by the schwinn badge on the front of the frame) ----- numbering system: the first 'letter' is the month, the second 'letter' is the year. The letters ' i ' and ' o ' are skipped to avoid confusion with numbers 'one' and 'zero'.
I have a vintage Schwinn Traveler made approximately 1985. I have been trying to learn more about the bike through the serial number and head badge. However I can't seem to find difinitive information. I located the serial number: SC507898, but the two letters at the beginning don't match any date code listed on any of the sites the last serial numbers and how to decode them. The head badge also has a number on it: 1025 which would put it as made the 102nd day of either 1975 or 1985. This confuses me though because the head badge days Chicago, but I thought I read somewhere that the Chicago factory was closed in 1982. The bike is a Schwinn Traveler. Given all this information, can someone help me find out exactly the year the bike was made?
1 Answer
Schwinn closed the Chicago plant in 1983 shortly after opening a plant in Greenville MS. They were also importing many bikes at that time. Your '85 Traveler was built in Greenville MS. The headbadge still read 'Chicago' because Schwinn's corporate offices remained there.
The serial number SC5xxxxx indicates the frame was built in March (C) of '85 (5), and the 1025 headbadge number indicates the bike was built on the 102nd day of '85, or Friday April 12th, 1985: http://www-air.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/jday?month=3&day=11&year=1985&Show_Calendar=Show_Calendar
This of course means your bike is an '85 model as depicted in the catalog here: http://bikecatalogs.org/SCHWINN/1985/LightWeight/Traveler.html