Chuck wrote:
"Reasoning behind the foil?
Ink on foil stickers had an element of novelty when first introduced (late 50s early 60s ?) just as derailleurs made of Delrin® plastic were "newer than new" when first introduced. It was only later that the problems with both surfaced and at that point they were viewed with contempt.
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California"
******
It's worth noting that if manufacturers had been willing to clear-coat the foil decals the way they did solvent or water-slide decals, foil decals could have lasted indefinitely. But foil decals, in my experience, were never clear-coated.
And, that may have been the idea, the foil was sturdier than the solvent-applied graphics, and so needed no clear-coat--thus went the reasoning, I assume--and so using foil was cheaper--the foil *was* sturdier than solvent-graphics alone, but it didn't hold up to normal doses of sun and moisture the way clear-coated graphics did.
I suppose vinyl stick-on graphics were the bastard-child of foil, used for the same reasons...but seemingly even less robust. Neither a match for clear-coated graphics.
Pogliaghi used foil graphics for a long time..those bikes in clean, original condition are quite prized now--not only for themselves, in any condition--because those cool foil graphics often faded and then peeled right off under normal use.
Charles Andrews SoCal
"Even in such a time of madness as the late twenties, a great many men in Wall Street remained quite sane. But they also remained very quiet. The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil."
--John Kenneth Galbraith *The Great
Crash of 1929*