Anyone know the story with this brand? There are a number of nice looking pieces on this Romic for sale on ebay
Romic Road Bike | eBay
The rear derailleur looks a lot like a modified SunTour VX, but maybe it's a completely different design. Just curious if anyone else has seen any of these components before, or knows where they came from.

they aren't that great: an American importer's line that had Cambio Rino (Italy) make them...they were slightly better finished than the regular Rino stuff, which (in my book) was near the bottom of the "B Teams" of Italian components that weren't Campagnolo.
Romic was a fine builder (a bit on the conservative style, I think he stuck with Reynolds 531 all the way to the end of his career) so the frame's the thing, here...not the Excel parts.

Edit: actually that crank doesn't look half bad, maybe I'm being a little harsh on Rino, but I've had some bad experience with frozen seat posts, etc. that sort of colors my opinion. Wonder how they (Rino and Excel) got away with what looks like a blatant rip-off of the SunTour's patented slant parallelogram RD design? There must have been lawyers in the US division's home office...maybe they were caught napping...

I gather that's an open question, at least based on what little info I've come across. Note the discussion of uncertainty around whether there was legal action by Suntour against Rino, or perhaps a licensing agreement, on the Disraeligears site: Rino derailleurs

I've come across similar uncertainty in forum discussions relating to the connection between Cambio Rino and Joe Gardin in Toronto (their NA importer, for a time, though that relationship apparently soured).

In any case, certainly a direct copy made while Suntour's patent remained in effect.

Interesting info there, thanks for the link...it's always amusing to read the stuff that Mr. Disraeli-Gears writes (that's a better handle than "Sweatman", IMHO), I especially like his opinions when I also happen to agree with them.

I learned something, too: Lon Haldeman actually used some of the "Excel" gear, and they were a manufacturer (in Illinois, maybe in someplace like Elgin?) of some very shabby-looking RDs, themselves...so these Rino RDs are really pretty good (compared to those!)