It was not uncommon for parts to progress downward in status and price over time. Sometimes the tooling wore out and the parts actually got worse. My first impression of parts like Gnutti hubs and Balilla brakes in the 1970's were that these parts were junk. The same tooling and companies produced pretty good parts in the 1950's. Ambrosio, for some reason, became a second rate brand for TTT once they shifted over to that name. Wienmann never went down hill (much) but the status certainly declined. Mafac had to reach a pinnacle in 1963 with the Top 63 and Tiger and then became the falsely maligned squealing cheap brake of 1973. It was too complicated to adjust for the typical 1973 mechanic. A 50's Simplex Tour de France derailleur would have stumped those mechanics also.
Joe Bender-Zanoni Great Notch, NJ
Don Wilson wrote:
> Ray Dobbins pics of Edward Albert's Gloria at Cirque
> show an Ambrosio Stem that is remarkably like an
> Ambrosio stem I have on what I assume is a fairly low
> end Chiorda (it has a Valentino derailleur set). What
> year is Edward's Gloria? What time period were these
> Ambrosio stems common?
>
> Don Wilson
> Los Olivos, CA USA
>
> D.C. Wilson dcwilson3@yahoo.com
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