chadwebster

I recently picked this mystery up and am wondering if anyone can help me ID it. It has a 26.8 seatpost that is pretty tight fit, might actually take a 26.6. The drop outs dont have any name/numbers as far as I can tell, no serial number to be found. What appears to be nervex professional lugs and reynolds 531 frame tubes. The seat post binder bolt is not like anything I have seen before. It has ends very similar to the cone of a loose ball hub. The Peugeot decal seems to be painted on and is not a sticker, it is also not cleared over. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Pictures are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/68793830@N06/

miamijim

I think it was discussed in a different thread.

It's NOT a Peugeot.

chadwebster

Ok so what could it be?

balindamood

I think the french tubed 531 seat posts are are 26.4. The fork does not have a bend that looks too French, although it could be. If the BB is not French or Swiss, it is definately not from France. Italians would sooner eat sauerkraut with every meal than use Reynolds tubing. Without more info, I wouid say it is probably Dutch, American, German/Austrian or Brittish (in that order), unless it has a French/Swiss BB shell.

prettyshady

looks repainted? so the 531 decal may be wrong?

Captain Blight

Fork looks very English to me (It's probably the monocole and the scone). And it looks like head and seat tubes are non-parallel. Falcon?

cudak888 

Those are genuine Nervex Professional lugs, but that bottom bracket is a Nervex Pro copy. That's also a sealed BB in it, and I'll bet you a few Paramounts that it isn't a Velo-Orange unit either - in which case, it's not French threaded.

At least the drive-side Campagnolo 1010 dropout has been cut off at an angle at the bottom. Seems to be for better tire clearance when removing the wheel.

-Kurt

unworthy1

I'll bite: how do you tell it's a Nervex BB copy?
I agree, the sealed BB unit says this is probably not FR or Swiss threaded, unless it's a Phil Wood (18 splines) which I don't think it is and can't count them in that pic, anyway.
Measure the OUTER diameter of the 3 main tubes with a good digital caliper, measure the BB shell width with a metric ruler...report back.
metric 531 can take either a 26.4 or a 26.6 seatpost.

unworthy1

Quote:
"Italians would sooner eat sauerkraut with every meal than use Reynolds tubing."
Not to put too fine a point on it: but there were more than a few Italian builders who used Reynolds 531 tubing, including some of the very top names such as Masi and Cinelli.

neurocop

When I was visiting Bolzano a few years ago, I noted that the Italians there ate quite a bit of sauerkraut. Back to the bike in question...
It's clearly been worked over and repainted.It is an old frame and not a PX10. It has brazed on derailleur cable guides under the BB tube, the derailleur stop is brazed to the underside of the chainstay, the headset is Japanese, the TT has been drilled to route the rear brake cable, and there is a splined "sealed" BB. The Reynolds sticker is peculiar and definitely not period for the frame (I think it says TI, a later variant?). The fork is definitely Reynolds. Finally, the lugs look like Nervex Pros, but of the older type with relatively short scallops (seen on bikes from the 50's). It does say "Peugeot" on the DT, but given that it's been repainted who knows what that means. My guess would be a Swiss or Dutch bike.

cudak888 

I take it back, but let me explain what led me off-track:

Look at all the extra material around the chainstay sockets:



By comparison, I've rarely seen even a roughly-finished Nervex BB with that much meat on it:



Nevertheless, when trying to look for the photo above on Google images search, I found this one from a 1960's-era PX10 (no, I'm not suggesting this is a PX10):



It would seem as if the Nervex Professional casting was refined at one point - if nothing else, perhaps this gives us a reasonably good fix on the date.

-Kurt

bobbycorno

That's debatable. I've seen a few 531db Romanis, many early Cinelli Speciale Corsas were 531db, and top-end Lygie (yeah, it sounds French but it's Italian) frames were all 531db IIRC. It probably has more to do with the fact that Columbus was far more easily available than Reynolds in Italy.

SP
Bend, OR