Originally Posted by Road Fan

Gran Sport was high end in the early 50's into the '60s. There's a Campy timeline out on the Classic Rendezvous site. I don't know exactly when Record began to appear (and then soon become supplanted by Nuovo Record), but such transitions are usually fuzzy with Campagnolo. The first brakes came out right around 1970, just based on recollection. Before that there weren't any Campagnolo brakes. That's why high end Raleighs and many others came with Weinmann center-pulls. The Gran Sport brakes shown were late '70s. Trek and some others put the gruppo on some performance-oriented bikes in the early '80s, such as some of the 6xx and 7xx models. It was then definitely an upper-middle gruppo.

Another point: I really don't think Nuovo Record parts were anodized. Anodizing is a process similar to electroplating, where the part is placed in a chemical bath, and a current is passed through it. Instead of resulting in a coating of a different metal, it results in a coat of aluminum oxide. The AlO2 can be doped with other materials to result in a colored oxide coating. AlO2 is very hard and does not flake readily, plus it's thin and very, very resistant to abrasion. It also as we know ends up with a matt finish.

The longevity of an anodized finish is similar to the longevity of the finish of Nuovo Record parts, but in nearly 40 years of exposure to Nuovo Record, what I've heard on this list in recent years is the first mention of these parts being anodized. Look at a set of well-used NR cranks, with heel rub. That sort of surface wear is not what one would expect from an anodized part. I really think they were not anodized, but finished with some more conventional process.

If someone knows they were anodized, please speak up.

Road Fan