A while ago, I suggested that Campagnolo may have bought FB (the hub maker).
Recently, I asked Ernest Csuka, of Cycles Alex Singer, who had mentioned this initially. He believes that sometime around the late 1940s, after the three-piece Campagnolo hubs came out, FB was bought by Campagnolo outright. However, the details are sketchy. Ernest believes that the hubs labeled Campagnolo were made in the FB factory, but after Campagnolo bought them. When I pointed out that FB also appears to have made hubs for other companies with their names, he was not surprised.
Clearly, for Singer, what counted was that they bought the hubs, and that they remained relatively unchanged. The check went to FB (in France - their factory there, which, according to Ernest, later became the French distribution center for Campagnolo), but whether they were owned by Campagnolo or not didn't really matter.
Having raised the issue initially, I just wanted to provide this update. Does anybody else have more/precise information?
Jan Heine, Seattle