The auction outed by Steven Maasland is over, and some fine person has now pocketed an early Campy GS for 314 Euro. That's fine with me, except for the lingering feeling that I'm missing something why it was worth so much, not so little. This one clearly has an incorrect top pivot bolt and pulleys. It claims no provenance (wasn't used by Coppi in some famous victory, for example). What's its mojo?
I mean, I have a (late) Campy GS, a "steel" record, and things like that, items that take me back to the era when I began riding. So that would be an emotional reason for having one, even if imperfect.
I've got a plunger derailleur or two, also, just as novelties I picked up for chump change decades ago, to show friends how things had changed. Perhaps, for some folks, this early GS is the same kind of illustrative piece, the first widely sold (cf NIVEX) parallelogram derailleur.
Or maybe, it's just speculation, hoping to flip it later to someone who wants it even more.
I don't know, but somehow the unit itself reminds me of the mythical lost dog poster. Seems it described a deaf, one-eyed, three-legged mutt that eagerly answered to the name "Lucky." Somebody loved that dog, very much.
harvey (blessed by having only one Rhodesian Ridgeback) sachs mcLean VA