Please help identify this Colnago
 

Hi all, picked up this Colnago frame, can you please help date/identify it?
No markings, Campagnolo dropouts.
Color is a blue-ish purple (or purple-ish blue).
Dura Ace sticker on top tube but was built with mix of components, none of them Dura Ace, when I bought it as a complete bike.
Came with the pantographed 3TTT stem.

Any help greatly appreciated!

From what I can see it looks to be a '78-80 Colnago. Are the dropouts Campagnolo or Colnago? There may be some numbers stamped in the rear driveline side dropout. Also the rear brake bridge may tell you something. Is it drilled for recessed brakes?

Edit. Saw you already answered the dropout question. My best guess is '78-80.

Can say for sure but its old.

Pics of the rear brake bridge?
What kind of dropouts?
Pics of the underside of the seat lug? Does it have a cutout?
Pics of seat saty caps? They look scalloped.....

Is it drilled for recessed brakes? My guess is around 78-79.

Seems about right.

Time period seems right, but looks like a re-paint.

Thanks for your input!
No numbers stamped as far as I can see (maybe lost with the repaint?)
Not drilled for recessed brakes.
I'm not surprised about the repaint doubts, the paint feels too fresh for it's age and the decals on the seattube seem in the wrong place (usually in the front, not left and right).
Will post some more pictures later.

Here are the pictures.
Somebody has a catalog from this area?
Velo-Retro nor Bulgier has these...

There is a "4" stamped on your dropout.

Hmmm (i feel silly now!). And what does it mean?

Looks like a late '70s "Super".

Or a Mexico. I have a Mexico with the same lugwork as your last set of pics. Somebody's painted over the chromed fork crown on yours. Supposedly Mexicos used lighter gauge tubing. I actually weighed mine. Have to find the sheet where I wrote it down. What I do remember about it was it was lighter than a 60cm Raleigh Team 753 I also have, the Colnago was 2 cm shorter, had the headset races still pressed into the head tube, and still had the adjusters on the rear dropouts. For whatever that's worth.

Re: the numbers, I'm really not sure what the numbers mean. At one time I thought it indicated the year. Mine has "77" stamped into both the driveline side rear dropout and the steering tube. Some old timer type Colnago experts have told me they don't think that's the case. I was more curious than anything else. Chuck Schmidt has a pretty good Colnago timeline out there which you could find with a Google search. These days I'm more inclined to believe it was a reference to the person who made the frame.

The Bulgier site has a late '70's catalog with pics of both a Super and Mexico.

With your frame being a repaint it's going to be very hard for you to tell if it's a Super or a Mexico.

Thank you all for your replies, it helps a lot, much appreciated!
I'm now thinking it's an International or Export (http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/colnago/05.jpg , http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/colnago/02.jpg) since it has no 'Colnago' engraved on the seatstays (the Mexico and Super do)
Anyway the chrome on at least the crown or the entire fork has been painted over.
FYI: i'm making inquiries to have it repainted again.

There are pics here http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/colnago/ on pages 9 and 10 of a Mexico and Super without the engraved stay caps. I guess it just shows how transitional a period it was and why it is sometimes difficult to put a date on one of these bicycles.

+1. I have a 1980-ish Mexico without engraved seat stay caps. I think the OP's probably pre-dates mine by a year or 2. Both of our bikes have portacatena dropouts but mine hase recessed brake holes.

And my Mexico has a painted fork......

http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/DSC02184.jpg
http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/DSC02185.jpg
http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/DSC02187.jpg
http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/DSC02188.jpg
http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...o/DSC02189.jpg
http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/r...DSC02736-1.jpg

The Mexico I have has the same dropout as yours, but the brake bridge doesn't have the square block. A recessed screw will go in partially but quite a bit of the head still protrudes. I am assuming it is a nutted brake, but the fork is drilled for a recessed brake. Fork is painted. My best guess is very late 77 or early 78.

From my searching, numbers don't mean anything. The NDS RDO has USA stamped on it and 53 on the DS but it is a 58 frame! Too many pictures here: http://s985.photobucket.com/albums/ae332/SJX426/ if you are interested. There are sub-albums too.

Miamijim, nice looking "Nago"! Interesting BB with the lug on the main BB toward parallel to the spindle. Nice brazing work on the stay/DO interface. Of course the YELLOW bar tape!

hi, sorry to threadjack, but since this is an "identify this Colnago" thread, thought I'd piggyback on. Can anyone tell me what I've got here?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/...a7f55de0_b.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...5489c202_b.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5017/...df895f02_b.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...c805bffa_b.jpg

i talked to another guy, and he said he thought the charcoal accents on the stays might be the result of a repaint, as he had never seen something like that before. any insight would be great. thanks.

Early 80's Super. Repaint.

the whole frame? or just the stays? were they the same red to begin with?

It has a Columbus repaint decal, so probably the whole bike. I wouldn't know if that red is the original colour, look in the BB shell for traces of any other colour.

+1
I lean toward circa '81, given the over-the-BB cable routing.

Could in theory be a Mexico, but only difference would be the tubing type, as pointed out above. Hard to determine.
That's one of several I've seen recently (mine included) that has a really nice lug contouring, though folks are often quick to rip Colnagos from that era (myself included). Truth is, they were inconsistent, and the poor ones muddy the waters. Of course, it could have lugs that some work went into and still have been poorly brazed, aligned, etc., but generally the time spent on the finish work says at least something about the build as a whole.

I thought that "Mexico's" had the single indented line on each side of the TT and DT, a precursor to the shaped tubing like Gilco and Ghibli. Was it just the lightweight tubing on the early ones?

The early Mexicos just had thinner tubing; don't remember if it was Columbus KL or Record. I have one bike made of KL, and it sounds very thin when flicked with a fingernail.

The guy I talked to who suggested mine was repainted had a Mexico with those indented lines running the length of the tt and dt. Is the pantographing on the fork crown specific to particular years? His had a crescent moon "C", with the clover inside of it...