Schwinn 1956 Advertisement — Liberal Discounts, and a Range Split into Lightweights, Middleweights and Balloon Tire

First Time Ever Offered!

SCHWINN BICYCLES at Liberal Discounts

We’re Overstocked

No use beating around the bush. We have a tremendous stock of SCHWINN BICYCLES and that ties up a lot of cash.

We want to reduce this stock and raise cash in a hurry. Therefore this unprecedented CLEARANCE at LIBERAL DISCOUNTS.

All models, colors and sizes are included. Some models in limited quantity. So we advise early selection.

No Charges, No C.O.D.’s, No Telephone Orders, No Dealers.

MODEL — REG. PRICE — SALE PRICE

LIGHTWEIGHTS

VARSITY — 26″ and 24″ English type, 3-speed, hand brake and foot brake — 66.95 — 51.96
RACER DE LUXE — 26″ English type, 3-speed, hand brakes, chrome mudguards and light — 59.95 — 49.51
RACER — 26″ and 24″ English type, 3-speed, front and rear hand brakes. (Also available with coaster brake.) — 56.95 — 47.95 / 49.95 — 39.95
TRAVELER — 26″ only, 3-speed, front and rear hand brakes, built-in generator light — 82.50 — 64.70
Also Available with Foot Brake

MIDDLEWEIGHTS

AMERICAN — 26″ only, Bendix multispeed front hand brake — 64.95 — $51.96
TIGER — 24″ only, 3-speed with coaster brake and front hand brake — $66.95 — 49.51
Above with coaster brake only — 49.95 — 41.18

BALLOON TIRE

SPITFIRE — 24″ — 46.95 — 39.21
SPITFIRE — 20″ — 41.95 — 34.31
BANTOM — 16″ girls only with training wheels — 44.95 — 30.39

MANY OTHER MODELS AT PROPORTIONATE SAVINGS

A Limited Number of REGENT English-Made Bicycles AT TREMENDOUS SAVINGS!

BOYS’ — 26″ Only, Maroon, Green and Black — 49.95 — 35.95
GIRLS’ — 24″ Maroon and Green — 47.95 — 34.95
GIRLS’ — 24″ Blue — 47.95 — 34.95

MT. VERNON Cycle & Sport Shops

5019 Wisconsin Ave. — Open Friday Evenings ‘Til 9 P.M.
8223 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring — Open Friday Evenings ‘Til 9 P.M.
424 9th Street N.W. — Open Thursday Evenings ‘Til 9 P.M.

[There is no engraving and no photograph. The advertisement is set entirely in type inside a rounded rule, the word SCHWINN filling the upper third in a very heavy display face broken up by white flecks, the model table ruled off in a single column at the right, the Regent offer boxed in a dotted rule beneath it, and the dealer’s name reversed white out of two solid black bars at the foot.]

[One advertisement cropped out of page B-9 of the Evening Star of Washington for Wednesday 1 February 1956. It is the fourth Schwinn document in this archive and the only one of the four that is about lightweights.

Its value is the table, and specifically the three headings the table is divided under: LIGHTWEIGHTS, MIDDLEWEIGHTS and BALLOON TIRE. That is the American bicycle market caught in the middle of the change that gives this site its subject, written out by a retailer as the ordinary working categories of his shop floor. The balloon-tire machines that filled the 1947 Schwinn advertisement already held here are down to two entries at the bottom of the list, one of them a 16-inch girls’ model with training wheels, and the head of the table is given to lightweights.

Every one of the four lightweights is described as English type and every one is a 3-speed. That is Schwinn answering the British lightweight imports rather than leading, and the same sheet proves the point twice over, because the dealer is clearing a limited number of REGENT English-Made Bicycles in the box directly beneath, at prices that undercut the Schwinns.

The VARSITY here is not the machine most people mean by that name. In February 1956 it is a 26-inch and 24-inch English-type 3-speed with a hand brake and a foot brake at $66.95, the dearest lightweight in the table after the Traveler. The 10-speed Varsity that became the best known American derailleur bicycle is later. The TRAVELER at $82.50 tops the whole range, and its specification is the most complete on the sheet: 3-speed, front and rear hand brakes and a built-in generator light.

The headline is worth reading against document 70886. That advertisement, placed by Schwinn itself nine years earlier, spends its space telling the reader to find an authorized Schwinn dealer. Here an authorized dealer is discounting, and he calls it First Time Ever Offered and unprecedented, which tells you plainly that a Schwinn at a cut price was not a normal thing to see in 1956. The line No Dealers at the foot of his copy is aimed at other traders buying up his clearance stock.

The sheet sets the Bantam as BANTOM and it is transcribed uncorrected.

The whole newspaper page is never the document here. The advertisement was cropped from the Library of Congress IIIF master at native resolution and the page identifier is kept in the provenance pair. The body text was set from the Library of Congress machine text and then read against the image at native resolution, which is why this record is marked as machine text checked by eye rather than as transcription.]