my buddy just bought an old lugged steel frame that seems italian or french because the geometery is something to the effect of 56 top tube and 53 seat tube. It's not a track, as it has horizontal dropouts. My question does anyone know how to figure out what brand it is by VIN. The VIN is IF2L08353 the zero could be an o but i do not know.

whoops wrong bike, the serial is KF164652

you can usually tell the difference between italian and french by the threading, check the bottom bracket?

there are no distinguishing marks, decals, or anything else on the bike to clue you in? type of tubing even?

can you tell the dropouts/trackends?

Might ask in the vintage forum as well.

yeah i forgot about the vintage forum and thats a good idea, sheldon has pictures of the 10 different drop outs, so i'll check that....
the frame must have been repainted so there are no marks or anything, i will find a picture here in a second...
about the bottom bracket threads, i am not savvy enough to know the difference. I was kinda hoping there was was just some magic search engine that could tell what year and make/model by the serial.

this might help? i am going to see if that drop out style is on sheldons page.