Stephan Andranian wants to know about the rather odd - for Reynolds that is - frame decals.
I remember them vaguely maybe some 15 years ago. The steel is some form of light higher quality high carbon steel, but not a chro-moly or a chro-manganese. Possibly it is in the same realm as the Italian Falck tubing.
Reynolds experimented with quite a range of tubing in the 80s and 90s to try to compete with quality "basic" lighter weight stuff coming in fom the likes of Ishiwata, Tange and Mannesmann. For some reason the company released these tubes in France before the UK...501 appeared over there before it came out in England..and the lighter version 501SL was very popular even with craftsman builders in France. I'm not too sure if it was available here.
I was told on good authority that it was Peugeot who spurred Reynolds into producing 501. Peugeot was Reynolds largest customer in terms of volume sales.
Norris Lockley ..Settle UK