So I’m trying to clean out the garage to make room for all my kids crap this winter and im thinking its finally time to sell off old Schwinn Stingray.
All and all its in pretty decent shape, the chrome is starting to rust, and there are some spots on the steel frame where to paint chipped and its rusted. There are two place on the silver banana seat that the vinyl is cracked.
My question is, would i be better off just cleaning it up and selling it as is, rust and all? Or should i take it apart, sandblast and paint the steel and redo the chrome?
So I’m trying to clean out the garage to make room for all my kids crap this winter and im thinking its finally time to sell off old Schwinn Stingray.
All and all its in pretty decent shape, the chrome is starting to rust, and there are some spots on the steel frame where to paint chipped and its rusted. There are two place on the silver banana seat that the vinyl is cracked.
My question is, would i be better off just cleaning it up and selling it as is, rust and all? Or should i take it apart, sandblast and paint the steel and redo the chrome?
I highly doubt a rebuild will be worth it. I would first find out the date using this tool. http://schwinncruisers.com/serial-number.html Then try and find any closed auctions on ebay for a similar bike, don’t look at current ones as folks think these are worth a ridiculous amount of money and quite frankly they just aren’t. That might give you a ballpark price.
I tried flipping bikes a couple of years ago but quit because the market just went away. One of my local shops has a semi restored one, he started at $300 a couple of years ago, he’s down to $100 and gets offers of $40 all the time. I had better luck buying here and hauling the whole bunch once a year to Chicago, prices are better in the bigger cities.
People think old schwinns are worth money because 15 years ago or so, some of the rarer ones went for some crazy money. Then they released a bunch of repops, folks got burned. Thing is most schwinns were made in the hundreds of thousands and are worth more as scrap than as a bike.
BTW let me know what year it is and I can do some poking around. I still have a few places around to check prices on stuff. I bought a sweet Lotus a while back, just waiting to restore it.
Only flaw is the front brake, might not be original or I might have the year wrong. Found a sold one on Ebay from September, it did not have the front brake and looked to be in similar condition to yours if you cleaned it up. Went for $102, Chicago area which is a decent area for older stuff.
Worth more cleaned up. A home or amateur paint job will make it worth less. A superb restore job will take way too much time. Cost too much and only possibly make it worth more.
Just polish the chrome (000 or 0000 steel wool will rub away the rust and polish the chrome) and hand polish the paint with fine rubbing compound. Regrease what you can and make it operational.