[CR]Colnagos. Flowers? Clubs? Both?

(Example: Racing:Jacques Boyer)

From: "Hugh Thornton" <hughwthornton@hotmail.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 16:16:57 -0500
Subject: [CR]Colnagos. Flowers? Clubs? Both?

Mystery almost solved.

There seems to be argument as to whether the Colnago symbols are Flowers or Clubs. I am told that Colnago himself calls them flowers. That may depend on how good his English is. He more likely calls them "fiori" which is the Italian for ........, you guessed it, Flowers AND Clubs. Literally fiori are flowers, but it is the name given to the card suit of clubs (the actual symbol derives from the German card suit (now defunct) of Acorns, even though the Italians call them flowers).

So are they flowers or are they clubs?

Well, if Colnago adopted the symbol after cleaning up in a high stakes poker game, I would say that they are clubs. On the other hand, if there was some memorable event involving flowers, and he chose the stylized card symbol for "fiori", then I would say they are flowers. Pending further conclusive information on this subject, I would say that everybody is right because they are undoubtedly the card sysmbol that anglophones call Clubs and italophones call Fiori, a.k.a. Flowers.

Does anybody know what prompted Colnago to use this symbol?

Hugh Thornton in amazingly warm and sunny UK