Montgomery Wards Swap Meet Find

[BackWoodCycle]

Bought this at the Swap Meet in Springfield, Missouri last weekend. Someone did an amateur restoration job on it. Looks good from a distance but up close you can see all the paint runs and crooked lines.. and nearly every line has tape bleed through. But still a nice bike. I don't think the rack is original. Looks like a Schwinn Rack that has been extended. Any idea what the make and model is of this bike? And age. I will take some more detailed photos when I get home.

20140816_093022 by arpicker1, on Flickr

 

[Jarod24]

Looks like a snyder built wards hawthorne zep. Late 30s. That would be my guess. Very nice

 

[The Black Monark]

Doubtful it began life as a Zep, but definitely a ~1938-1939 Snyder Hawthorne.

 

[BackWoodCycle]

Does anyone have an original rack for one of these?

 

[Jarod24]

Doubtful it began life as a Zep, but definitely a ~1938-1939 Snyder Hawthorne.

Im still learning ha. I thought that this frame style was considered a zep. What is the difference between this and a zep?

 

[The Black Monark]

Im still learning ha. I thought that this frame style was considered a zep. What is the difference between this and a zep?

afaik a Zep would not have had ears for the dropstand on the rear dropouts, and would have had straight trussrods, I think. Zep had a locking fork, too.

 

[Jarod24]

Oh interesting. I always thought they just came with the standard Snyder fork, like the one in picture above. appreciate the info, thanks

 

[BackWoodCycle]

All of the 39 Zep pictures I've seen by searching on google are curved. .
I haven't seen one that's straight yet

 

[The Black Monark]

Oh interesting. I always thought they just came with the standard Snyder fork, like the one in picture above. appreciate the info, thanks

Fork looks similar, but it has a lock in it.

 

[The Black Monark]

All of the 39 Zep pictures I've seen by searching on google are curved. .
I haven't seen one that's straight yet

Also looks like you could get a Zep in this frame style in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

 

[Jarod24]

so looks like they didn't even come with a drop stand. Interesting. So I found a pic of what says it is a 39 zep. So the 39 frames are just completely different?

 

[BackWoodCycle]

so looks like they didn't even come with a drop stand. Interesting. So I found a pic of what says it is a 39 zep. So the 39 frames are just completely different?

Wow.. that was the picture I was looking at but I didn't even notice the frame difference

 

[Jarod24]

Yeah, I like the other ones a lot more. The fastback look if you will.

 

[Walker]

That's a CWC built bike, totally different animal..

 

[Jarod24]

That's a CWC built bike, totally different animal..

Awwww now that makes sense. So pretty much the zep bicycles wheather they were CWC or Snyder built they were pretty much top of the line wards bikes? Where as the bike at the beginning of this thread was Snyder built very similar frame and fork to the zep but probably lower end. Do I got it right?