Schwinn Catalog and Advertisement Gallery

Schwinn printed more paper than almost any American bicycle company and a great deal of it survives. This gallery gathers the catalog pages, dealer books and magazine advertisements that document the marque from a 1939 trade advertisement for racing components through to the BMX bicycles of 1981, together with the covers that fronted each season.

Read in sequence the paper shows a company that could photograph a hand-built Paramount beside a swimming pool and sell a five-speed Sting-Ray with a stick shift in the same season. The lightweights and the mass market shared a catalog, a factory and a badge, and the advertising almost never explained the difference. Every image here is a period document, scanned and retouched at full resolution.

The Paramount and the racing line. The Paramount was hand-built in numbers measured in hundreds a year and Schwinn advertised it as the choice of champions for four decades. These pages carry it from Paramount and Superior racing components in 1939 through to the X-tra Lite specifications of 1978.

Catalog page showing an orange Schwinn Professional Road Racing Paramount beside a swimming pool with two people in 1970s clothing, alongside a gray specification panel

Trade advertisement headed For Your Racer, showing a red Schwinn racing bicycle surrounded by labeled photographs of large-flange racing hubs, Dural featherweight hubs, Paramount and Superior crank sets, head sets, an axle set and a Goullet racing bar

Balloon tires and the family range. The cruiser paid for everything else. From Buck Jones on a Schwinn-Built lightweight to the Twinn tandems of 1980, this is the range that made the name a synonym for bicycle in the United States.

Two-page catalog spread photographed beside a swimming pool, showing four women with Schwinn ladies lightweights, above specification columns for the Varsity Tourist, Collegiate, Traveler, Deluxe Breeze and Breeze

Catalog page showing a red Schwinn Traveler with a saddlebag, generator lighting and drop-center rims, headed The Schwinn Traveler with the lines Lightweight Design, Generator, Lights, Deluxe Equipment

Advertisement photographed in a living room on Christmas morning, with two boys in pajamas running toward a Fastback Sting-Ray, an exerciser, a unicycle and a Varsity Sport beside a decorated tree

Color advertisement showing the film actor Buck Jones in a cowboy hat riding a green Schwinn-Built lightweight beside his white horse at a paddock fence, above the script line For the Ride of a Lifetime

Catalog page showing a blue 10-speed Schwinn Twinn Sport and a red five-speed Schwinn Twinn tandem, with a small photograph of a couple and a tandem on a wooded staircase

Sting-Ray and the Krates. The Sting-Ray arrived as a mid-year model in 1963 and reshaped the American bicycle market. The Krates followed. Schwinn understood this customer far better than it ever understood the lightweight buyer.

Crowded advertisement headed World Famous Schwinn, with a boy at the top right, a blue Super Deluxe Sting-Ray at the center and smaller panels for the Super Sport, Varsity, Collegiate, Racer, Twinn and Typhoon

Advertisement headed It Is New for 68, Schwinn for the young in heart, showing a boy on an Orange Krate five-speed alongside a dragster at a raceway

Parts, accessories and the dealer book. Behind the consumer catalogs sat the parts book, where the difference between a component stamped Schwinn and one marked Schwinn Approved is settled in part numbers.

Parts catalog page headed Front Hubs and Parts under a Schwinn script header, showing exploded photographs of hubs, axle sets, bearing retainers and cups with numbered part references

BMX and the Scrambler. Schwinn dismissed BMX as dangerous, entered it in 1975 and spent the next six years trying to catch up. The machines were competent and late, and the factory race team was better than the sales.

Advertisement showing a silver and red Schwinn Competition Scrambler SX1000 with callout lines to its components, beside a young rider in red racing kit, headed New for 1979 — Spanning four decades of Schwinn print, from a 1939 trade advertisement for Paramount and Superior racing components to the BMX bicycles of 1981, these catalog pages, dealer books and magazine advertisements trace a company selling hand-built lightweights and mass-market cruisers out of the same Chicago factory, and almost never explaining the difference.

Advertisement headed Welcome to the Big Leagues, showing three riders in red and white racing kit jumping Schwinn BMX bicycles with mag wheels against a pale sky — Spanning four decades of Schwinn print, from a 1939 trade advertisement for Paramount and Superior racing components to the BMX bicycles of 1981, these catalog pages, dealer books and magazine advertisements trace a company selling hand-built lightweights and mass-market cruisers out of the same Chicago factory, and almost never explaining the difference.

Read the full history in Schwinn: An American Giant and Its Hand-Built Lightweights, which covers Arnold, Schwinn and Company from 1895, Emil Wastyn and the birth of the Paramount, the fillet-brazed Superior and Super Sport, and the long decline into a brand without a factory.

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