Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
My experience with vintage French hubs is bad, in that the cones are made of soft material and pit a lot faster than Campy hubs, even the lesser Campy hubs such as Tipo and Victory/Triomphe.
It depends on the model hub. Maillard 700 hubs had high quality races and cones. The same company made the ubiquitous (at the time) Atom and Normandy Sport. Those cones were crappy.
Campagnolo Nuovo Tip (which means "new type") hubs had good cones but stamped races. But the hubs were pretty durable overall.