Michael Butler noted:
During the 1970's you could buy from our wholesaler's Italian made 531 racing and touring frames in bare metal. These were very well made and cheap. Many of our famous top makes purchased these and had them painted and transfered up as theirs. Typical Italian styled frames of the day which were fashionable back then. The frame builders I knew said it would cost them double the wholesale price to make a same spec frame with spear-point lugs and the same tubing and ends. ++++++++++++++ I'm not sure that the Italians were the only ones doing this. I will bring to Cirque my wife's French bike of the same vintage, bought at a shop bankruptcy sale in Ohio about '75. The difference is that it came with paint and the SuperVitus tube and fork stickers - and typical French quality lug filing. For fun, we set it up as a high-end Campy-free bike, with Teledyne spindle, Stronglight 63 cranks, hi-E hubs, Jubilee derailleurs, Mafac plastic brake levers, etc. Came in at about 18 #, I claimed, with a Suntour alloy FW!
harvey sachs
mcLean va.