stronglight

There is an irony to the use of fully chromed forks. Yes, it was more labor intensive and time consuming which would translate to more expensive. However on some of my old 1970s bikes the entire fork and fork crown was plated because just this was easier than doing only the lower portion. Any overlap of the chrome beyond the point which would be exposed, would later need to be scuffed just to receive the primer and paint - a bothersome additional preparation stage.

One example of a badly prepared job is an early 70s Motobecane Grand Record where the chrome was not well prepared (scuffed or distressed) beneath the paint. The result was that the paint and primer eventually began to flake off in large patches until virtually all had simply been shed off.

So, NOT painting some of the full chrome fork ultimately eliminated a couple final steps... making the full chrome fork actually cheaper.

AND... it makes sense that you could slap a full chrome fork onto ANY painted frame, without needing to color-match. Just grab one out of stock, and you've completed the frameset - regardless of the frame color! A great way to simplify and reduce the cost of factory assembling a bike.

I do have a very nice full chrome Columbus fork on one bike from the later 70s. To my eye it always simply looked like it was a replacement had been added when an original paint matching fork had been lost. The Colnago "Super" was one of the first I can think of with full chrome forks... they always looked very odd and off balance to me too.