I saw an early frame go on ebay a week or two ago for $1100+.

Now it seems the floodgates have opened. I saw at least 2 up this morning.

I never knew they brought that sort of money or were that collectible. I like the one I have but $1100 for just a frame? It's not a pre '78 Cinelli.

Genuine early Mexicos are pretty rare, though of course as soon as one sells for big money on eBay, others are sure to follow. Later, they were all but indistinguishable from the Supers. Early ones reputedly had very lightweight tubing - supposedly Columbus Record in at least some cases. It's open for debate whether they were actually built using that tubing, since it's really too light for production frames. I think what's happening in part is that the flow of early and mid-70's Colnago in general is beginning to dry up, and prices have been moving upward. At least some of the early Mexicos also had a special Campagnolo group as well - which would be a real chore to put together if all you were starting with was the frame. How early is your Mexico?

I'm not sure the dating of my Mexico. It looks as the ones on the bay, there's a "77" stamped into the rr driveline side dropout, and the clover/club cutout on the bottom bracket is the early shape.

The paint job on mine isn't the greatest, and I'd like to refinish it someday when I have the money to do it right.

Post a pic of your Mexico. I like to see these bikes. I too have a Mexico Oro that's in need of a major restoration.

Unfortunately, those numbers stamped on the dropout are meaningless, or at least have no meaning that anyone I know has been able to determine.
If the decals match the ones on eBay, other things to look for to identify an early Mexico are a club-only on the fork crown (later ones also have "Colnago" stamped there), long Campagnolo dropouts vs. the shorter ones, absence of top tube braze-on cable guides (the green one on eBay appears to have these, so is either a repaint or later than the seller thinks). If it doesn't have these features, it could still be 70's era, but wouldn't necessarily be as collectable as the gold one that went for $1100.

The pics are over on Dale's site (CR). The only pics there are mainly lug details. If I remember correctly I posted a couple pics up here a few years back when I was looking for the year of the bicycle. I think it was called "dating an older Colnago".

Kurt

The gold one had the top tube cable guides, as does mine. So far the differences I have seen are mine does not have the long rear dropouts, and the decal, while similar, has a club in the C of Colnago. Mine also has the club only on the fork crown. There is no Columbus tubing sticker on the frame, and it doesn't appear to have ever been there. I doubt the frame is a repaint as the decals are peeling up. Everything else on mine, except the color, seems to match the frame that sold a couple weeks ago.

Unfortunately, like a lot of other older bicycles, this one has seen its share of use and many of the components have been replaced with period correct components, but it doesn't give me much to go on for validating the age of the bicycle. The SR rear derailleur is pat 79, which may be correct, but the crankarms do not have matching date codes. Chain ring is NR, seatpost is NR, headset is Colnago, the list goes on.

Someday I'd like to refinish the bicycle to original condition, and I guess it might help if I had an idea of what year it really is...

Kurt

Just looked at the pics from a while back. There is Colnago stamped into the fork crown.

Yours is later than the gold one - not way later, but enough to affect the value somewhat. At the time yours was built, and I would guess '77-79, Colnago was farming out a lot of frames, quality was suffering, and Colnago's reputation was taking a hit it would recover from in the mid-80's, when they got a handle on how to do the larger production thing better. The problems seem, however, to have affected the Mexicos less than the lower-level bikes, perhaps because the Mexicos were built with lighter tubing and therefore demanded more careful brazing. Yours is definitely a nice and desirable bike, judging by the photos in the other link, but you maybe never be able to nail the date down further than about a 3-year span. You could take the easy way out and take your cue from the date code on the rear derailleur, until more evidence to further pin down Colnago dates emerges.

Thanks for all the input.

Now for another question. Does refinishing the bicycle detract from the value? I picked up a set of factory decals fromYellow Jersey a couple years ago and was thinking if I could scrape up the money, to refinish the frame and rebuild or replace some of the worn components. As an example, in the world of older American SXS shotguns for some reason it seems to detract from the value of the gun if it's refinished, while in Great Britain its a widely accepted practice.

Any thoughts?

There was a 1980 Colnago super on craigslist for $100, needless to say I tried for it but it was too late.
I still don't like the damn clovers, but it's a quality bike.

Often, refinishing does detract from value. Your bike looks like it's in pretty nice shape, actually. If it were mine, I'd leave it alone. If the components are original, I'd leave them alone as well. Of course it's your bike, so do whatever makes you happy. But you may never get your money back out of a restoration. And decent, original examples of any 70's Colnagos are getting more and more scarce. You have the decals, so you can always decide to refinish at some later point, or offer them with the bike to the new owner. You could also touch up the blue so that it blends with the original paint.