OK I finally got around to stripping this frame, I've hammered eBay this week so this should be up and running for next weekend

Jacek was of course correct, the serial is 8411, as this better and correct way up pic confirms, so that makes the frame from 1996, correct?

As you can see to the chips to the paint under the letter 'P' on the left, its looks like a rusty sort of colour underneath the green, and the frame has a few other paint chips along the rear stays, and on one one of the fork blades that also have this colour, but I don't know if this is evidence of a previous colour, of some kind of primer for the green coat, or just rust! Oh yes sadly I live on small island in the north Atlantic....

But mostly the condition of the paint is very good, I've just waxed it and its buffed up rather nicely, I do love this deep green, and decals with the pink fade look original, not that I'm any kind of expert on that,, do you think?

Onto the fork, and alas the is no remaining card of readable label of any kind on the fork, it does share the same green if they are a repaint they appear to me to have been repainted at the same time

I've just looked up and down the steerer with a magnifying glass, and there are no serial numbers listed on at all, the only 2 punched markings on the steerer, are half way up the steerer at the back, is clearly stamped the number '2'

And right above the fork crown on the steerer is what looks like the letter 'P' with bit missing off the top left section

I've no idea if that means this is an original fork to the frame, or if the fork was added later, same with the green, if that's original colour or not. I don't mind either way as this green colour scheme was the first Merckx one I saw that really caught my eye when I got into road bikes a decade or so ago, and made me start looking at other Merckx's. So when an MX Leader (which I love) one came up locally I was across town like a shot. So it will be staying green no matter what, over to you maestro Jacek, what do you think?