I recently purchased a 1964 Schwinn Traveler three-speed from an online auction. This particular bike appears to have gotten very few miles, still having its original tires, handlebar grips, and brake pads. Here is the seller's photo of the bike, before any work has been done:
I was drawn to this project because of its completeness, good originality, and the fact that it is one of the last three speed Schwinns with the "classic" post-war Traveler features: stainless steel shark fin fenders, extra long chrome and paint chainguard, reverse color handgrips, etc. Someone added safety reflectors to the wheels, but this is not a permanent change.
Overall, I am optimistic about this one. The bike is now in pieces in my shop undergoing cleaning and re-building.
One place to check for mileage, neglect, or abuse is the bearing surfaces. This includes the bearing balls, the cones, and the cups in the various high-wear joints. Inspecting this project, the bearing surfaces in this 9/1964 hub are quite smooth still, with relatively low wear. The drive train parts - cog and sprocket also show very limited wear. Bearing balls are all clean, smooth, and shiny. There is a little gunk around the edges, but it will clean up fine.
Another place to look for abuse and neglect is the wheel rim. Abused rims will tend to show dings, distortions, and other structure damage. Neglected rims tend to rust, especially on the inside around where the eyelets. In this case, the rim is very clean. The spokes also retain their grey coating and none appear to be badly bent, rusted, or broken. These are all good signs.
One final word about "out-of-the-box rides". What I mean here is when someone immediately assembles an old bike found in the wild, from the shipping box, and then rides it without additional work. An alternative situation is when someone finds a bike at the thrift shop, yard sale, garage sale, and immediately starts riding it in a significant way (more than just a short test ride).
Do not give in to the temptation to just start riding the bike a lot. If there's old sand or grit, or there is incipient damage, it will get worse if you just start riding the bike without tear-down, cleaning, and re-lubrication. A short test ride is fine, but don't take an "in the wild" bike and just start riding it a lot. If you absolutely must just ride the bike and not work on it, buy from a hobbyist or shop that has gone over the bike already.
I'll close with something more positive. I thought I would focus for a moment on one of the parts about these old Schwinns I really like: the "Schwinn Approved" Weinmann 810 brake calipers. These calipers are generally plentiful, and parts are widely available on the secondary market. They are reasonably light for a 1950s-60s era caliper, and they tend to be pretty reliable. They're not the strongest or lightest calipers, but they are pretty good for the time period in which they were made.
Below is a "before and after" sort of shot. The caliper on the left is from this project, but has not been cleaned, greased, and polished yet. The caliper on the right has been gone over. These calipers function well and also are quite handsome, especially once they are cleaned and polished.
