I have emailed the folks at merckx 3 or 4 times with no responce, mabey some of you vintage folks , has some experience with identifying older Eddy Merckx',
I just Purchased this Merckx, and am trying to figure out the frame model, and year , Frame is labeled for SLX tube set. Serial # “8059” other marking on bottom bracket “ D “ “4X”, although the bike is set up with campy ergo shifting , Im pretty sure they were added later , as i speculate the bike to be early eighties
any help would be appreciated





















https://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/...dmanyard11.JPG

Thanks
Steve

NOT early eighties, Steve; mine's '84 and still has the old lettering. The 3-colour scheme definitely looks later too ... I'm guessing early 90's at the earliest, but don't know whether their serialnumbers can be a big help in dating those bikes. Nice bike btw!

+1

Mine is a mid 80's as well (84/85?), and still has the old lettering like your red one - see pic, below. What's interesting is that mine shares the sloping fork crown that the OP's bike has, not the flat crowned fork that your bike exhibits.

Even so, the OP's bike is a very beautiful one - I wouldn't mind being seen on it!!!

That paint scheme was offered the same years EM sponsored Motorola and Telekom - they had the same style in different colors. 1991-1992 for sure, maybe later too, not before.

54cm Corsa Extra. 1993, give or take a year in either direction.

4 is 54cm. X is Corsa Extra -- or perhaps it means SLX, which is basically the same. The letter (D) seems to be the year portion -- A being in the 87/88 range, B 88/89/90, C 91/92, D 93+, etc. I'm probably off a year or a bit on those dates, but they roughly work. Prior to 87, its tougher. Z seems to be 85 and {part, all} of 86.

C (on the drive side of the bb) seems to point to Corsa. P to the professionals (road + track). It gets messy with some of the other sub-models (team replicas, etc) but the pattern is sort of there.

Course, this could all be totally and insanely wrong...

Thanks
I appreciate all the info , BTW , I purchased the merckx for $150 seams like a good deal LOL
Steve

Very sweet Steve, beautiful bike.

I've really got to take some better photos with my new camera.

Could I get some help on my Eddy Merckx. It is red with the same style lettering as the two posted red ones posted above. The components on it are a mix of Shimano DA, 600, 105, and it is running 7 speed brifters. serial number 7873 with a Z by it (on non-drive side BB shell). On the drive side 4C is stamped as well as the letter A.

Semi-educated guess is 85 or 86. Pretty sure the Corsa was intro'd for the 1987 model year, so maybe late 86? Is the A perpendicular (on its side) to the 4c?

Almost no chance those components are original.

I STRONGLY encourage all of you to send your absolute humblest, nicest, most friendly email requests to info@gitabike.com, asking them for model + year info on your serial number. Give them full details of whats on what side of the bottom bracket, and any other details you have. Then post the dates + serials on here so I can add them to my list and figure this stuff out better.

I tried this, so far without response or success.

Worth mentioning -- the "old" letter scheme, and the flat vs. sloping crown existed in parallel for several years -- at least in to the late 80's.

Must not have been friendly enough.

A long standing problem of mine - I must work on it.

Hey - you might remember that bike in the pic I posted - it was the subject of a thread you participated a while back. Hint - fully pantographed, everywhere.....

I totally remember that bike. Patent or date codes on any of the components?

Its a beauty -- and I'm insanely jealous. Sleep with the lights on + one eye open.

The A is directly below the C in the 4C. I never expected any of the parts to be original. The date codes on the components indicate 85 (crank) and 89/90 build dates for brakes and deraill. So it might be a 85/85 Corsa?

You have a LIST? Is it posted somewhere? Even if we don't have the exact info from GITA we could still have a pretty good reference point.

That funny way they put the numbers and letters on the bottom bracket has always confounded me. I'm going to take a photo of mine.

The serials are in no way or shape sequential year-to-year -- they do increment within a given year, however; I know the owner of the Grand Prix immediately adjacent to mine. Same size, same color. Pretty cool.

I'll post my list. It's comprised of serial, description, claimed date and where possible, actual date. I have a parallel archive of pictures corresponding to about 20% of the serials, but since they're mostly stolen from eBay, I'll have to think a little bit about posting them.

I'll whip up a list palatable for people other than me, along with all of my notes thus far, and post a link here shortly.

What did you put in your email? "Hi, my name is Steve and I'm interested in dating an older Merckx." No wonder you didn't get a reply. Sheesh!

I can't find anything much, but maybe I don't know where to look. I confess - I sort of bought a pig in a poke on this one, and know next to nothing about Campy trim/dates/groups.

Here's all I can find:

On the BB shell, one side has a small "5" over a small "A", and the other side has a "Z" over "979". The inside of the left crank arm is marked "170 STRADA" with a circled "3", and the drive side is the same but with a circled "2". I don't see date codes or patent dates anywhere.

The arms would be 83 + 82, respectively...but I've had a feeling they did the pantographing en masse, and then used parts as needed (hence the mismatched arms)...but who knows.

Where the cable enters the rear derailleur should (could) have a Pat. followed by 2 digits. Anything there?

Why yes, there is - "PAT 84". Hmmm..... wonder what the "84" means......

So, now we know the year - more or less. Now, what model?

Nobody will mind that you kept an eBay photo and serial number, there's no issue there - let's see that list!

Here's my BB: a D over a C 5 on the drive side, and a C over a 1483 on the non-drive side. This is a 55cm, 7-Eleven painted (not team bike), Corsa SL that I bought new as a bare frame in 1993, but it had been in the shop for a while so it may be several years older than that. $820 on closeout.



Hmmm, if the photo disappears, try this LINK

Here's my list.

https://www.cadre.org/Merckx/

Spent a TON of time cleaning it up, writing stuff with it, etc. You guys can make it all worthwhile by sending in more serials and pictures. PM me here, or use the email addr in the link above. Also useful would be catalogs not available on bulgier.net, dates for the publication of any of those catalogs, magazine articles, ads, etc.

I'd also recommend reading a blog post I did on dating by frame details:

https://tearsforgears.blogspot.com/20...-ephemera.html

Charts the arrival of certain frame details that may help a little.

Nice work!!! It seems my bike is well represented in photo's already. If you require more or better ones, just let me now.

So - from your excellent work I can assume my bike is probably a 55cm Professional (5A), and was built in 1984 ("Z" on the BB shell, as well as "PAT 84" on the RD).

Cool.

BTW - don't know if this is a big deal or not, but the original owner gave me a NOS roll of original bar tape with the bike.

'84 or '85. I don't like to be nailed down to a specific answer. Now I have 2 chances to be right. If only life normally worked like that...