Also, what if it is in good condition,and maybe has a little rust on the rims.And how do you get the rust off?
How do you know the actual price of your schwinn bike if it is from the seventys?
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It’s worth what somebody will pay for it, no less, no more.
Your best bet might be eBay. If you’re looking for an estimate on what it might be worth, check completed auctions on eBay for similar bikes, see what they sold for.
Unless you’re trying to find the original price? In that case, perhaps you can find some catalogs from that period online somewhere?
If you’re looking to actually sell it, eBay or your local craigslist might be your best bet. eBay gets you a larger market, but going local skips shipping costs. If it’s truly collectible, eBay is a better choice. If it’s just your average 35 year old bike that’s not really special, craigslist might be better.
As for rust on the rims, that means the rims are made of steel or chrome, which is not a good thing — aluminum is much better, because it doesn’t rust, weighs less and braking doesn’t suffer so much when they’re wet. Only the cheapest bikes have steel rims, though perhaps in the 70s more bikes had steel rims? Not sure.
If you’re looking to ride the bike yourself, you might want to replace the rims with aluminum ones — the difference in wet braking performance is very significant. If you’re looking to sell it as a collector’s item, leave it as stock as possible, which means leaving those rims (but do clean everything up.) Note that Schwinn sold a lot of bikes back then, and most aren’t anything special — the odds are your bike isn’t particularly valuable or collectible. But maybe it is …
In any event, you can get the rust off with steel wool (SOS pads are pretty effective and not too hard) and maybe some chrome polish, though I don’t think you’ll need it. It shouldn’t scratch your rims, but keep the pressure down just to be sure.
The wheels must have some coating on them to prevent them from rusting in the first place, and obviously that will be gone where the rust is, and it’s likely the SOS pad will take it off of other places you clean with it, so they’ll probably rust again. You might want to check with some old bike experts to see what they suggest to prevent it from rusting again.
Take the rust off with some steel wool, and then oil that area so it won’t come back quickly. As the other person said, it is worth only what someone is willing to pay. You might ask some bicycle shops.
I would use some chrome polish or rust remover on the the rims as the chrome on those wheels will scratch by SOS pads or steel wool. Unless you use very fine 0000 steel wool.
The worth of the bike? What Schwinn is it? Since it has steel wheels we can eliminate the one that would have the highest price new — Paramount. A Schwinn Paramount would have aluminum wheels — usually with tubular tires in the 70′s. It would bring a good dollar from someone who loves Reynolds 521 tubing. There are many fixies out there that have Paramount frames.
A Varsity, Collegiate, or Collegiate Sport were mass produced carbon steel bikes. Made by the thousands and very much a part of the “bicycle boom” in the US, hardly a collectors item. Someone may have a sentimental interest and believe it to be worth more than it really is.
If it is an original Sting Ray and all intact. Leave it alone! Don’t try to change anything. Take some pictures of it and place it on e-bay. It may bring the highest price of any 70′s Schwinn. They are the most collectible. Original is better than rebuilt any day as it can only be original once.