1957 Schwinn Town and Country

[Professor72]

I've been on a roll the last couple weeks- early Christmas for me. Found the wife and I a tandem finally. Schwinn Town and Country, I'm guessing 1957 by the dates on the tires. Serial number is #04091 and production year has proved hard to determine exactly until i can pull a crank and see if it's dated. Has drum brakes front and rear and the stainless steel fenders as well as Phillips road pedals. Needs some work, but should be a rider next year. Also found a 1966 stingray frame and a 1969 lil chik frame at the same spot.

 

[Wildcat]

Nice original bike!

I don't know if Schwinn made the cranks, so the usual date on the cranks may not be there, but using the catalog may narrow it down. Tandems sometimes didn't change between model years. If the hubs are Sturmey Archer, they may have the date on them.

Still, that's the tandem to have.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

That is cool! Love the curved seat tube on the rear to shorten the wheelbase, great design!

Luke.

 

[Wildcat]

Here the pic from the 59 catalog:

In 57, the catalog doesn't show the Town and Country on the chain guard, in 58 has no pic, but the price list only shows a tandem, no name. The 1959 catalog shows the tandem as a Town and Country. The story is they made all the frames in two years for all the years of production, and had a unique size tire, so yours could have older tires on it. Here's the 57 Catalog pic:

I found an old thread here from 2012. Page 2 has some good info too. This tandem is higher quality than the usual Schwinn tandems you see (the Twinns). Also tandems serial should start with a T. The others I've read about have a couple zeros after the T. I think yours should be T004xxx. The serail number charts show the dates the earlier models were built, including the T003xxx bikes in 1950, but then the charts don't show the tandems after that.

http://ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/schwinn-town-and-country-tandem-help.61899/