Common questions..

A final note: As the machines left the factory, the Identification Numbers with the Vehicle Serial, Frame and Engine numbers were unlikely to be the same on an indivudal bike, but were always within 200 or 300 of each other. Bridgestone Frame and Engine Serial Numbers by Graham Weeks Originally appeared in the UK Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club Newsletter vol. 4 (Aug 1996). There are three different identifaction marks on all Bridgestone motorcycles. There are the usual engine and frame numbers, with an additional Vehicle Serial Number on a separate plate.

• How much is my bike worth?
• What size tires goes with my bike?
• What bike do I even have?
• Where can I get vintage parts and accessories?

I have received many calls and emails regarding these questions and their answer is almost always found on a website called Ebay.

Thousands of vintage Schwinn bikes, parts and accessories are sold every month on Ebay, it is a goldmine of information.

If you look to the right side of this page you will see Schwinn bikes that are for sale at Ebay right now (unless you are reading this on a smart phone), and their values.

When people sell things on Ebay they post pictures of what they are selling. Therefore there are thousands and thousands of images there that can help you figure out how much bikes like yours are selling for, what type bike you have (if you do not know), or what it is supposed to have as far as accessories go.If you are unfamiliar with Ebay then keep reading and I will show you step by step how to find answers to your questions there.

First step is to go to Ebay (this link will open in a new tab): Schwinn bikes on Ebay

Guide to Using Ebay for Schwinn Research

Ebay is a place where normal people buy and sell an amazing assortment of things. Every time you go to Ebay there will be thousands of vintage bikes and parts available. Since these items have photos, there is a great wealth of knowledge and reference to be found. Let's look at one of the questions I receive every day..

How much is my Schwinn worth?

To answer this question is rather easy. Your bike is worth is what people are willing to pay for it. You used to have to guess at this, but now you can know for sure what people are paying for a particular bike. If you have a Schwinn Stingray (as an example), you can search and here is a sample of what you will get..

You will get a list of items, with photos that have something to do with 'Schwinn Stingrays'. You will find entire bikes, seats, handle bars, reflectors, etc.

In fact there is usually so much available that it isn't always easy to find exactly what you want. Now let's get back to the question 'How much is my Schwinn Worth?'

So we went to Ebay, searched for 'Schwinn Stingray' and now let's make it a little more specific. Ebay let's you sort things and when you are looking for the value of a particular type of bike a good place is to sort it by price. To do this, let's use our Schwinn Stingray search and look to the top right hand of the page..

The red arrow above is pointing at the sort options.

A great way to find out how much a bike is worth is to see what the top price is for a really perfect bike, so we are going to choose 'price: highest first' as shown above.

The reason we will do this is because the items that are highest priced are normally entire bikes in really great condition, higher priced items tend to have many photos, and it will also give us a 'high-end' estimate of what Schwinns of this type are selling for.Now that we have sorted it to 'highest price' you may be surprised by what you see. Some of these are going for thousands of dollars! Actualizar software para motorola xt316 spice. (there are Schwinn that you will find that go up to 10,000 dollars sometimes. Here is what it looks like now that we have sorted it..

To see the particulars of a certain bike just click the listing or the little photo and you will get all the details of the bike including photos, description and price details..

So now we have eight or nine photos to look at and compare to our bike (and this is just one listing, there are probably dozens of Schwinn Stingrays on Ebay at any given time).Go to Ebay and play around and you will be pleasantly surprised by all that you can find out about your Vintage Schwinn bike.

Centurion was a brand of bicycles created in 1969 by Mitchell (Mitch) M. Weiner and Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi,^[1] who co-founded Western States Import Co. (WSI) in Canoga Park, California (initially Wil-Go Imports) to design, specify, distribute and market the bicycles. The bikes themselves were manufactured initially in Japan by companies including H. Tano Company of Kobe and later in Taiwan by companies including Merida. The Centurion brand was consolidated with WSI's mountain bike brand Diamond Back in 1990. WSI ceased operations in 2000.

Centurion and WSI competed in the U.S. against domestic and European bicycle manufacturers including Schwinn, Raleigh, Peugeot, Gitane and Motobecane — as well as other nascent Japanese bicycle brands including Miyata, Fuji, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Univega, Lotus and Nishiki — itself a line of Japanese-manufactured bicycles that were specified, distributed and marketed by West Coast Cycles — a U.S. company similar to WSI. Japanese-manufactured bikes succeeded in the U.S. market until currency fluctuations in the late 1980s made them less competitive, leading companies to source bicycles from Taiwan.

WSI marketed the Centurion brand of road and touring bicycles in the United States using the tag line 'Where Centurion leads, others must follow' and 'A Lifetime Bicycle', offering a warranty without time limit. For a brief period the bikes carried a 'Centurion Bicycle Works' headbadge.

The German company Centurion, which still exists, imported Centurion bikes from Japan to Germany from 1976 on and bought the name-rights in 1990.

History[edit]

According to Frank J. Berto,^[2][3] Raleigh Industries of America had been looking at a Japanese source for their Grand Prix model. Raleigh America ordered 2,000 bicycles from Tano and Company of Osaka but their parent company in England, TI-Raleigh, disapproved — concerned that the Tano-built bikes were too well made and would have outsold their own British bikes.

Raleigh's sales agent, Mitchell Weiner, who was reading The New Centurions at the time, took receipt of the bikes, placed Centurion decals on the bikes and marketed them successfully, subsequently forming Western State Imports after merging with Rick Wilson's company, Wil-Go of Santa Clara, California. Because the bikes had all been intended as Raleigh Grand Prix models, as Centurions, they carried the colors of the Raleigh America Grand Prix model.

Cozy Yamakoshi served as the company's product development manager, designing the bike's frames, coordinating the manufacture of the bikes by Japanese manufacturers, and importing the bikes into the US.^[1] Subsequently, around 1986, Centurion introduced their first Taiwanesebuilt model, the Signet. The Cinelli Equipe Centurion of 1985 (only) was a joint-venture of WSI and Cinelli of Italy.

Early bike sales were limited to the West Coast, with the brand receiving wider exposure by the late 1970s. WSI stopped using the Centurion brand name in 1990,^[4] consolidating their road and touring bikes under the Diamond Back (later DiamondBack) brand. While the brand Centurion had become well known, under the new brand name the company's market for road and touring bicycles soon evaporated. Early Diamond Back models (ca. 1990) carried a top tube decal reading 'Centurion Designed' and stickers near the bottom bracket reading 'Designed in the USA' and 'Exclusively built for WSI.' Diamondback Bicycles was eventually sold to Raleigh USA, and manufacture was moved to Taiwan.

WSI later opened an office in Van Nuys, California, and eventually maintained offices in Dallas, Texas, Denver, Colorado and Dayton, New Jersey — in addition a headquarters in Newbury Park, California. After Weiner died, the company continued its growth under the management of Mike Bobrick.

Cozy Yamakoshi, product and development manager, worked with Mike Bobrick (Executive President of WSI) and Sandy Finkelman (1947–2005)(Diamond Back team manager and product development) and left Diamond Back in 1986, to start Parkpre Mountain Bike in 1989.^[5] Parkpre USA was based in Moorpark, Southern California, USA., producing bikes from the early 1990s until 1998. Ken Yamakoshi, son of Cozy Yamakoshi, is in the process of re-launching Parkpre in the US.

The rights to the brand name Centurion were sold to Germany's Wolfgang Renner ^[de] in 1991. Renner had imported Centurion to Germany since 1976, including made-extra models like the first German mountainbike 'Country'. Today, Centurion remains as a German brand with design and engineering in-house.

Models[edit]

Centurion eventually marketed a full line of road and touring bikes, with steel construction ranging from full (all eight tubes) high-tensile 1020 steel at the lower end, to full (all eight tubes) chromoly bikes at their high end — with top quality componentry. Notable models included:

• Centurion Cinelli Equipe: WSI/Centurion and Cinelli offered the co-branded Centurion Cinelli Equipe for model year 1984/85, as a joint-venture, designed by Cino Cinelli several years after he retired in 1979 and sold Cinelli to the Columbo family, manufacturers of Columbus tubing. The Cinelli Equipe's production was coordinated and supervised by his staff. The bike featured all Cinelli frame components: Columbus SL tubing; chrome chain stay, Cinelli chromed sloped crown, head lugs, bottom bracket shell, handlebars and stem; new-style Cinelli logos embossed on bar and stem, fork crown, seat and seat stays, rear brake bridge and under bottom bracket; Campagnolo dropouts, derraileurs and shifters; Universal 'AER' non-aero brakeset; Ofmega Mistral headset, bottom bracket and crankset; Gipiemme seatpost; Regina chain and CX-S freewheel; Miche 'Competition' hubs and Fiamme, Hard Silver tubular rims. Other markings include a 'Cinelli Equipe' decal on down-tube just above shifters and on left chain stay; an 'Italia: Made in Italy' decal high on seat tube; Columbus tubing decals on fork ('Forcella Originale') and frame ('Acciaio Speciali'); Centurion decals on down-tube (left and right), and a Centurion 'C' decal badge on head tube.
• Centurion Pro Tour:Richard Ballantine's 'Richard's Bicycle Book' included the Centurion Pro Tour (ultimately manufactured from 1976–1984) on his list of 'Best Bikes' in both the 1978 and 1982 updates of his book — along with the Schwinn Paramount P-13, a bike that sold for two to three times the price of the Pro-Tour. Like other full-fledged touring bikes, the Pro Tour models featured a longer wheelbase with longer chainstays for smoother ride especially while loaded, full (all eight tubes) chromoly construction for ride compliance, cantilever brakes to allow room for fenders, internal wiring for a bottom bracket generator and numerous braze-ons: two mounts on the fork for the cantilever brakes, two eyelets in back for a rack and a fender, two eyelets on the fork for a rack and a fender, low rack mounting points on the fork, mounts for two bottle cages, mounts for downtube shifters/cable stops, and seat stay mounts for a rack.

Serial Numbers^[1][edit]

Centurions (except the CinelliCenturion) have serial numbers on the underside of the bottom bracket shell. One way to date a Centurion is to try to find date codes on the bike's components.

Centurion models manufactured in Japan between 1980-1990 use a serial number format WXYZZZZ with:

W = a letter, purpose uncertain, possibly indicates a manufacturer or Centurion;X = a number, indicating the calendar year of manufacture;Y = a letter, indicating the fortnight of manufacture (A = wk 1 & 2, B = wk 3 & 4, etc.)ZZZZ = four digit number, probably indicating frame number during fortnight of manufacture.

N4E0283, as an example, would indicate this is the 283rd frame made during the period of weeks 9-10 in 1984. Barring a major components upgrade at some point in a bike's history, one can confirm a bike's age by the dates found on the majority of components in its groupset.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Modern Manufacturers

• Centurion (German) Has the rights to the original company
• Centurion (Denmark) an unrelated company

Original

• 'Centurion Pro Tour Review', Bicycling, December 1976, Page 1, Page 2

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abc'Centurion Bikes'. Sheldonbrown.com, Ashley Wright.
2. ^Berto, Frank J.; Ron Shepherd; et al. (2008) [2000]. The Dancing Chain: History and Development of the Derailleur Bicycle (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA, USA: Cycle Publishing/Van der Plas Publications. ISBN978-1-892495-59-4. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
3. ^Berto, Frank J.; et al. (2016) [2000]. The Dancing Chain: History and Development of the Derailleur Bicycle (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA, USA: Cycle Publishing/Van der Plas Publications. ISBN978-1-892495-77-8. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
4. ^'Japanese Bicycles in the U.S. Market'. Sheldonbrown.com, Sheldon Brown.
5. ^'A brief history of Parkpre USA'. Parkpre.com.