Originally Posted by
rch427
What do you think about the age? The seller said "early-'70s" and "1973", and Juvela said 1974. When would you date it to?
I'd agree with [MENTION=333224]juvela[/MENTION] and the seller
. 1973-74 certainly seems about right.
Originally Posted by
rch427
How 'bout the tubing? Columbus or not? The measurements look right to me, but the lack of rifling has me confused, relative to the date. But then, I'm frequently confused.
2.846kg for the bare frame/fork and no rifling would make me think less Columbus and more Falck (as [MENTION=17926]unworthy1[/MENTION] mentioned), or at least a mix of some sort.
Originally Posted by
rch427
What about the World Champion stripes? Before I knew what they were, I thought nothing of them. But the more I think about a bike with its original paint and insignia, being built for a racing team, but not having the builder's name anywhere on it, they seem like they *might* be relevant to who built it. Yeah, I realize that anyone can put decals on anything, but (a) there was no one the builder or the team was trying to impress with them (such as potential customers), and (b) it sounds like it would've been an instantly recognized breach of protocol to put them on there if they weren't earned. I mean -- riding a racing bike in a race with people who know what the stripes mean, seems like it would've been a good way to discredit oneself in a hurry.
Originally Posted by
rch427
AFAIK, Pinarello didn't win a world championship until just a few years ago. Has Vetta ever? Whoever built it
may have put the world champion decals on the frame; the only markings on it that refer to the maker.
Vetta did a lot of contract builds for a lot of shops over the decades, but I don't know what the success of their frames was on the racing circuit. Regardless, when it comes to the stripes, you will find them on many Vetta frames in a variety of formats. Some read "Capmione d'Italia," some "Campione del mondo," some "Telai Vetta Padova" and some have just plain stripes. This is either a result of racing success or proof of non-existent decal enforcement.
Originally Posted by
rch427
I'm far from knowledgeable about the structure or practices of framebuilding shops, but my brain gurgitated a hypothetical scenario that might account for both of those factors:
The director of a private racing team (Bruno Vallorani) wants to commission some frames for his team, and wants to choose a builder whose frames have a history of racing success. The builder he chooses has had successes that include world championships.
The director and the builder agree that those frames will not bear the builder's name; instead they'll bear the name of the team, since that's what the team owner wants people to pay attention to, rather than the maker. Consequently, the aesthetics will not matter, so lugs that are less-than-perfectly thinned, etc., are acceptable. This helps keep the price lower.
The shop builds the frames but since their name won't be on them, they relegate the less-skilled or apprentice builders to do much of the work. Perhaps a somewhat more skilled guy did the lugs that are better-brazed and filed, and a less-skilled guy did the worse ones. Or perhaps it was the same guy, but he had to hurry. And maybe the kid who sweeps up the shavings drilled those clumsy drainage holes in the BB shell. But those lugs had to have windows cut out for brazing, and the reason they used heart shapes was for practice, since that was the shop's trademark. (It's interesting that they don't seem to have wanted to waste the extra time on painting the insides of the cut-outs.) How many framebuilders used heart cut-outs, and had frames which had won world championships?
This scenario certainly is plausible, or at least I can't come up with a valid reason why that couldn't be true.
On the other hand, I think it's also plausible that builders/shops other than De Rosa (whether it was Vetta or someone else) were emulating De Rosa by using the hearts. Whether that was done out of admiration or as a "hint" that this may be a De Rosa and create a bit of confusion, I don't know.
It is also plausible that if you're a manager of a minor team, getting bikes for all the racers would be a considerable cost. I would imagine that even a cheaper option from the De Rosa shop would still be more expensive than something from lower profile shop.
Considering that Raphael Geminiani had De Rosa build him a frame for the Giro in '58, as well as supplying frames for the biggest names in cycling throughout the 60s, by the time this frame was made De Rosa was an established builder of extremely high profile. Vetta was always an under-the-radar kind of an outfit. Even today, if you look through Italian forums for frame maker recommendations, you'll see Vetta often mentioned as a more economical option.
Ultimately you may never solve this conclusively; that's how a lot of these ID quests end up, unfortunately.
Both De Rosa and Vetta are still in business (in case of Vetta it's Antonio Taverna and his wife), so you could try to email them and hopefully get a confirmation one way or the other.
Originally Posted by
rch427
If anyone can point out a stronger reason to believe that it was Vetta, or Gio Blow instead, that's fine too.
I'm gonna use that name for any Italian frames I can't ID from now on
.