The bottom bracket is 68. I think the most reasonable assumption is that it the English threads were retapped for Italian. This was first suggested by Greg Parker to me. They certainly are smooth.
Thanks for the help.
Cheers.
Tom
>
> English or French BBs tapped to Italian will still be 68mm wide though,
> where one that was Ital from day1 will normally be 70. What's the
> frequency, Kenneth? Er I mean what's the Paramount BB width, Tom?
> (asking Tom Hayes, the seller)
>
> Mark Bulgier
> Seattle WA USA
>
>
> Thomas Adams wrote:
>
> > An italian BB on a Paramount? Very strange indeed. I'd
> > suspect a replaced BB, but that would be hard to do on a
> > chrome bike without showing marks. Or, perhaps the threads
> > were severly damaged, and someone ground out the damaged
> > threads and then retapped to Italian. I've vaugely heard of
> > this being possible for a reapair, but never have seen it done.
>
> And Chuck Schmidt added:
>
> > I've got a 40+ year old high end French bike that had its
> > French BB shell retapped out to Italian at some point [...]