Today I picked up a $5.00 sweatband for my beloved at the bike shop. This bike shop sells some classic stuff. For $1,200.00 you get a beautiful Ciocc in 56cm blood maroon red and NOS... perfect. It comes with a black Concour leather saddle, tubular rims and a complete pantographed Campy- Ciocc groupo. It has the red, beige and green diamonds with a black Ciocc "C" on the brake levers and red, green and beige stripes pantographed on the rest of the groupo. Cinelli stem and bars, Benotto tape --- lovely, lovely. It is sitting right next to an up to the minute Drek something or other for which he is asking the same price.$1,200 doesn't seem that bad for an untouched piece of history.
He is also selling a complete, 50th anniversary NOS Campy groupo in the box with the certificate card, and the added titillation is that the bottom bracket was made in titanium. He claims that $2,500.00 for this is a great bargain, and that sometimes similar examples go for as much as 5 grand. Seems hard to believe that the market could bring that because the pantographed groupo comes with a complete Ciocc bike, and the grouppo is prettier to boot. Now he points to the gold brake bolt and derailleur pivot and the history and the rarity, and I still like the pantographed one more, and so would just about any five year old you brought to the shop too.
Am I missing something? The pantographed process is time consuming and done at the Ciocc factory, so it has the individual touch of the craftsman. Wouldn't most CR's prefer to pant over the pantograph? Garth, Campy ignorant in Miami, Libre