I have a 1973 competition that is just like marc garcia's competition. the paint on the downtube and seat tube is glossy, but paint in other areas is flat black and it actually rubs off on my hand. my bike was crashed in 1975 or maybe a little later and so there has been no reason to touch the frameset since that time. The perfect transfers reflect this fact.
It's common for early 1970's raleighs to have rust coming through the paint.
i have other bikes from that era with NOS-like original paint jobs that have "raindrops" in the paint the top tube, for example. if you hired a new painter in 1973 to meet the explosion in bike demand, i think you might have him start on the "black bikes", so i think this is just par for the course on raleigh competition bikes in the early to mid 1970's.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA