I think the true answer there lies in my firmly-held belief that guys like Giovanni made what they made with what they had sitting there available to them that day and didn't worry about if the C had a tail on it for that model in August of that year. More like... "hey Samuel, do this one up with white decals with a black outline". Samuel looks in the drawer and grabs the first white decal with black outlines, certainly open to interpretation.

This is an example... Samuel has only recently been in charge in the grand scheme of things, but a nice example of what I think could've taken place in the late 70's.

Serial numbers are a totally different story that I haven't started on, even with my beloved Tommasini's. I just takes 'em as they come and try to learn as much as I can, within reason.

I did push him on the question of post-sale activity. He says that in the 80's and 90's he did a lot of terzista work for Maschiaghi (especially the Coppi line) and his own work during that time frame would have been under the Gion Italia or John the Star U.S.A. Based on numbers that I've seen (100% Gion and not John), I think 95% of his production was for Coppi!

I'm very interested in MS and Max frames and he says that there certainly are some Max Gion Italia and Coppi frames out there. Next time, I'll ask more about his John the Star U.S.A. work. If there ever was an Italian-dreamed up English name for a bike that'll "take the market by storm"... That's it!