Hoping to ID an Italian frame
 

Have been trying to decipher the head badge decal on an old Italian frame without luck. Hoping that there are some Italian frame builder gurus who can assist.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=413730http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=413731http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=413732

Moved from Appraisals to C&V.

Is the seat post binding bolt going through the seat post?

If it is a fastback binding bolt, my first guess is Umberto Dei, but the head tube decal is all wrong for Umberto Dei.

The word at the bottom of your decal is likely the city where it was made. I got S-A-????

It is not any of the big boys (assuming 30s/40s based on the geometry) - Not Bianchi, Ganna, Lygie, Frejus, Olympia, Gloria, Legnano, Wolsit nor Umberto Dei.

There is a bolt through the seat post although I believe this (sadly) to be a later adaptation. My sense is it would originally had a traditional style clamp a top of the seat post.

You are almost certainly correct. Not a big name. The name of the city would be at the bottom. Likely one of the hundreds of small frame builders of the day.

I can't decipher all those letters, but since YOU have access to the decal in-person and in all sorts of lighting, maybe you can...but there's a few that could be "GNAC" which would lead some of us to a word like Salignac, not Italian but French. If that's even close I wonder if you're 100% certain that it's Italian. There certainly are some Italian towns that have French history (conquest and rule) and have retained some of those place-names and spellings, but you might also have an Italian-made product that was sold in France.
Or, more likely those letters are something else entirely that YOU have to decipher (or take better pics).

Thank you for your thoughts and your lateral thinking. They are appreciated. As long as I don't have a positive ID then it is of course possible that it isn't Italian. The frame didi originally come out of Italy but that doesn't make it Italian. I tried to load higher resolution images but the system refused. I posted because I was unable to decipher and thought that there was an off chance someone might recognise the name. Thanks again.

BB threading and width? 36x24 and 68 would indicate Italian origin, since I do not know of any other country that used these dimensions.

68 mm? The vast majority of Italian frames I have use a 70 mm wide BB shell.

You are, of course correct -- it must have been my copy editor's day off. :)

I wonder when the Italian BB shell was standardized as 70mm and 36x24 threading...I seem to recall that there were some early Cinellis(?) that used odd shell widths...somebody like Citoyen duMonde (or Angel Garcia) would know.

Cinelli occasionally used a 74mm bottom bracket from 1957-1964. Other Italian manufacturers followed suit.

Cinelli used a 65 mm wide shell on some track bikes, coupled with a 110 mm wide rear triangle. Campagnolo even diagramed it in their catalog for a time.
Masi used a 74 mm wide shell, and Cinelli may have too, they used the same casting house for the bottom bracket shells during the sand cast days.
From what I recall, the 74 mm wide shell maintained the typical overall width, so my guess to set the bearings farther apart and or open up the space between the chain stays.

probably a bear to shift, but that Vittorio Margherita mechanism looks ever so cool. Do you have the striker fork assembly to go with it?

So the OP likely has a 1930's-40's bicycle? Early Derailleur Systems by BikeRaceInfo I'm also thinking it could just as likely be French as Italian.

Hard to tell from the image, but it could be a gen1 VM that did not have the rear "flappers". You push the lever forward to loosen the chain tension, grab the chain with your hand, move it from side to side and back pedal to shift. Shifting to the outside cogs is "simple". Shifting to an inside cog you tend to get your fingers into the spokes. So before any climb, I stop the bike to shift into a bigger cog. On a descent, I can remain on the bike and shift.

Oh wow, I didn't knew the first gen was a "manual"! I was under the impression that this could be one of the backpedal-to-shift second ones. Interesting stuff.

That said, I went a little a' googling, and the bike shown here looks a lot like this Stucchi with one of those first gen VM's, same patterns of chrome/different color of head tube. The head badge, off course, is different. http://bikeraceinfo.com/images-all/p...tucchi-001.jpg

Thanks all for the comments.

I'm not sure of the BB thread but the width is 70mm according to my vernier.

I had a very careful look at the bottom of the head badge decal following "unworthy1" suggestion and now believe I can confirm that it does read as "Salignac" which is in France not that far from Toulouse or Lyon. As yet I have been unable to link any frame builders with the Salignac region.

As for the VM shifter mechanism I believe it is the gen 1 version. No flappers. It came with the frame but I'm not assuming it is original to it.

Send the photos to a web pic hosting site like Flickr or photobucket and then post the link.

If the BB is 70mm it is doubtful that the frame is French. Also the Brand appears to be 5 letter ?REG? or ?AEG?

Possibly an Italian frame marketed in France? The head badge definitely seems to include the word "Salignac" across the bottom.

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...p;d=1414149632
Yeah, that's a good start. For what t's worth, I see traces of only 5 letters, but on account of the spacing I'm thinking 6 letters is more likely.
1 possibly V.
2 definitely A.
3 E or L.
4 B or D, I don't like G so much
5 ugh!
6 I can't see it, but I can sense it.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. There are 9 or 10 letters, including one or two that follow the supposed "GNAC".
1 S
2 A
3 R or B, possibly P, but not L.
4 N or M, doubtful I.
5 C or O, possibly G
6 N
7 A
8 G, possibly C
9 possibly A or... well, it could be anything, but it's definitely something.
10 I see no trace, but I'm not ruling it out.

The --GNAC reading is clever, but I would look elsewhere for now.

I was thinking F-R-E-
Then, bottom of a stylized G??? or Y? (wtf? There goes my "J")
Then maybe a P
something else in the 6th spot.
I was hoping for an easy "Frejus," and they do have stylized letters with extra lines above and below, but I see none on the internet that are close.

It's probably just an old schwinn collegiate :P

I don't know what it is

Thanks for the speculation on the letters. I concede I was too hasty with "Salignac".

To summarise:
1. A 70mm wide BB. So likely an Italian frame.
2. The brand name. Based on the spacing likely 5 or 6 letters. Possibly _ R E _ _ _. As R & E are capital letters then likely all capital letters. Could the third letter be a capital D or J?
3. The lower word. Town of origin? Based on the spacing again likely 9 or 10 letters. Possibly S A _ _ _ N A C _ _. Could the third letter be a capital B or D? Fourth letter unsure. Fifth maybe a capital G or C?

A difficult riddle. Will perhaps try high resolution image again over the weekend. And perhaps post to flickr.