Steve, judging by the color of the parts, I believe they have been chrome plated! It's possible to chrome plate over aluminum and ICS of Switzerland offered Campagnolo groups with either chrome and gold plating in the 1980s.
http://bulgier.net/
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California
Stephen Barner wrote:
>
> Holy cats! I know that some of my students could get the components to
> shine like that using the chrome filter in Photoshop, but someone spent some
> serious time at the buffer with those parts! I think what you're seeing is
> a whole lot of Euros for a whole lot of shine.
>
> --Steve Barner, who wouldn't want to have to keep parts looking that good in
> Bolton, Vermont
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:34:32 +0000
> > From: themaaslands@comcast.net
> > To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org (Classic Rendezvous)
> > Subject: [CR]Record high price for European ebay?
> >
> > I thought that my snipe bid of 800 euros might go somewhere with this Eddy
> Merckx bike, but as you can see, it didn't even register. I know this bike
> was interesting, but can somebody explain the final price of over $2800 for
> a 1983 Merckx bike? It has a 50th anniversary front derailleur and pedals,
> Campagnolo freewheel, and either highly polished or as per the description
> chromed parts.
> >
> > http://ebay.com/
> >
> > --
> > Steven Maasland
> > Moorestown, NJ