They are new, the dérailleur says Simplex Brevete Mod. Dep. Made in France, Des 292.503

never seen those before but they are definitely scary-looking! Too much plastic to inspire confidence and looks like some crude "indexing" deal on the RH shift lever. At least they may have gotten around to using a better plastic than the black Delrin of the '70s, but....

The body parts looks like they may be gray painted cast aluminum rather than plastic. I would guess late 1980s - after the company went bankrupt in 1985, then merged with Ofmega, and then reorganized to produce some low-end OEM components for cheaper French made bikes. Odd though, that it looks like a much earlier rear derailleur - before even Simplex had shifted to using mostly dropped-parallelograms by the early 80s.

All the hardware looks ultra-cheap on this model. Look at the awful cad plated machine screw for the derailleur cable clamp and the cheap and heavy, plated steel part used for the back of the pulley cage. Looks like all the parts were just painted, and very crudely cast or molded. I suspect the "index-looking" gizmo is really just something to make a "clicking noise" and perhaps to stop those crude looking shifters from slipping out of gear - maybe just cheaper than using a simple retro-friction spring, and to also make it look like there was something actually designed for a superior purpose. Perhaps just the crudest attempt to bring a mock-indexing look to a sub-Kmart level French bike.

No wonder they no longer even attempted to export any components. I think the company hung on until the early 1990s, after being finally bought out by a company which made locks for Peugeot autos, and making just a handful of derailleurs and retro-friction shifters. These are truly the saddest Simplex components I have ever seen.

A very sad end for the company which was once the maker of the Worlds most advanced and sophisticated derailleurs of their time.