SE bikes...

YY1 said
IIRC DeCosters (also a BMX company product along with Mongoose) were only available with the front triangle Cr-Mo.

Full Cr-Mo Team Mongooses only came in epoxy finish red or blue.
They chipped pretty easily.
Under the epoxy, they were nickel. Not as shiny as chrome but still pretty
Took quite a while to get all that epoxy out of the nooks and crannies.

I bought that frame for $50 (a LOT for a 14 year old kid in 1982) because the guy that owned it chipped the hell out of it and didn't want to take the time to strip the epoxy. His parents bought him a new Super Goose frame.

I was so poor, I couldn't afford a sticker kit, so I made my own rear triangle stickers from some of my mom's blank mailing labels and correction tape, painted like the factory stickers. They turned out pretty good.

Full Cr-Mo SuperGoose was the same frame, but chrome plated.
Cost quite a bit more.

80% of my stuff was bought used or traded for, though.
IIRC the only things I bought new were the crank, pedals and handlebars.
Maybe some brake HW.
The prototype Nitto SX stem was given to me by K&G bike shop who later became DK, manufacturer of frames and then complete bikes (with Mopar names, nonetheless). They gave it to me because I broke three Sun Tours in three months.

I'm still poor! LOL... My first 24-in cruiser was a team Murray which even back then was known to be the Kmart of bikes... I worked in the neighbor lady's yard digging weeds and doing all kinds of stuff I didn't really like doing and went down to the local bike shop and kept buying parts for it and changing them out. Even to the point to where I had to buy the rim separate from the hubs and the spokes separate from everything and lace them myself. Just so I could buy each part at a time but after time I had one bad *** bike except for the frame and forks.. the team Murray frame and forks was Chrome and didn't look terrible but it was still what it was and it bugged me.. I road it like heck but finally ran into a guy selling a JMC cruiser frame and forks and like you said 1982 and it was 75 bucks!.. I must have begged my aunt and uncle blind LOL.. don't remember how I came up with the money but I got it...