1959 Schwinn Hodgepodge

[Alienbaby17]

Over the weekend a friend of mine bought this for me at a garage sale.

Initially we could tell many of the parts on the bike were not original to it. The hand grips were generic looking, the seat was obviously not right, there were at least three coats of paint on it, the pedals were wrong and there were a ton of big, gaudy reflectors added to it. My limited knowlege of early Scwinns lead me to believe they had discontinued the use of the skiptooth chain in the early to mid 1950's so I was guesstimating the age at around there. At the time we didn't have access to the Internet to look up the serial numbers.

Once I got the bike home I found the serial numbers and looked them up. Through the thick paint it looked like the numbers were, 'D989484'. According to one website the bike was manufactured in 1959.

Now I am beginning to suspect that along with everything else that is not original to the bike the skiptooth setup must also predate the rest of the bike.

I'd like to find out what model this might be.

Aside from the serial numbers here are some more details.

Currently has a New Departure Model D rear hub.
Tires are 26 X 2.125.

It looks a lot like a 1961 Corvette I have but if this bike is a middleweight I wouldn't have expected the balloon tires to fit so well.

Any thoughts???

Thanks.

 

[Sphinx]

Lots of folks on here do say that Balloon tires will fit in a middleweight frame. That's not out of the question. Is that blue paint original? We may be able to figure out what model it is. I see lots of things painted blue that shouldn't be, but the original paint may hold a clue.

http://schwinncruisers.com/catalogs/1959.html

 

[Alienbaby17]

There are at least 3 coats of paint on it. Under the blue there is some yellow coming through and also some green. I don't know if the green is original but it looks awfully similar to the green on my '61 Corvette.

 

[B607]

The bridge for the back fender is made for hand brakes. I call these middleweight frames "clip frames". Could have been a Corvette, Jaguar, Tiger, or just about any middleweight. Looks to me like it has stainless fenders so that says Corvette or Jaguar...if they're original to the bike. Skip tooth set up predates this frame for sure. The Hodgepodge. That's a good name. Gary

 

[Wildcat]

The only to tell which model would be to see the name on the chain guard, if any of it is still visible. I had one that looked like it was bare but the letters still showed when I looked at from an angle.

I've put 2.125 tires on more than a few middleweight Schwinn's.