Hugh
If I'm not mistaken, the Italians are big on the game of bridge. Apparently that includes Ernesto. It also explains the popularity amongst Italian framebuilders of the use of these symbols on their bikes. This piece of information came to me a long time ago; all I remember was the person was Italian or had grown up there. It may have been Marcel Calborne or maybe Simonetti. The comfusion probably comes from the fact that in Italian some words don't translate well or in this case have two meanings. For me there hase never been any doubt that Colnago was clubs since I'd heard the explaination many years ago from someone who was into bikes and knew what it was all about. I was just talking to Rex Gephart about Italian translations into English since he is reworking Alberto Masis' website on account of very poor translation into English. He tells me the word "frame" translates into "looms" if done with a translator program. I still say Clubs!
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
Typing slower until I get used to this new keyboard.
>
> 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