At first glance I thought that this bike was an Oscar Egg..with its green livery it is very "Egg"-like. It's quite a coincidence that with a thread running on the List at the moment about Claud Butler bilaminated frames, that this bike should turn up. The spade-like feature cut-into the lugs and fork-crown resembles very closely what I always called fleurs-de-lys, but on the Clauds there are more of them and they are more ornate. I think that the frame on this bike, the brake levers and the bars and stem, Rosa/Cyclo chainset, and the Super Champion rear mech, and possibly the wheels are all original. The Huret front mech with its CLB chainguard bolted onto it are very early 50s.... or late 40s just possibly. Bobet used the same mech on his Stella bikes in the T-de-F ,for several years I have the identical set-up on an early 50s Motoconfort Touring bike. My opinion is that the bike was originally equipped a Cyclo/Rosa lever front mech to shift the chain across the rings on the Cyclo chainwheel. The shifting mechanisms were similar but not quite identical, the levers themselves being almost identical but the cages were different. I think that the outer cage on the Cyclo one was open.
The brake stirrups appear first-model Weinmann 730 pattern ones, from around the early 50s, I think. Again Bobet used these on his Stella, coupled up to Mafac levers. I'm fairly sure that the stirrups supplied with the pressed steel levers still on the bike would also be pressed steel and therefore would have been updated.
One other matter that intigues about the frame is that the lugs could well be 1930s English ones, such as Selbach and others used, while the crown is identical to the many thousands of two-plate round-bladed ones found on Claud Butlers, Hetchins , W.F.Holdsworth etc etc etc etc.
My very first purchase on Ebay some four years ago was what was advertised as a 50cms Italian track frame of unknown make, and possibly 1930s/40s. When it arrived I was confused by the two-plate round-bladed fork crown and the fairly large elaborate shapes cut into the cast lugs with integral headset. At first glance I decided that it was English.
However the rear triangle, the manner in which the drop-outs are brazed in, and the seat-lug configuration are distinctly Italian in appearance . The frame No is stamped vertically from the top, downwards of the seat tube on the near-side. It's almost as if two separate frames have been joined together, so distinctly different are the styles of back and front. It is incredibly light, and possibly one odf the most elegant frames that I own.
I have tried ever since I bought it to have it identified, but even the memberc of the V-CC have not been able to put a name to it. However, having seen this bike on Ebay, I am beginning to think that the origins of my track frame lie not in England or Italy, but more likely in Switzerland. I will check out the B/B threads tomorrow to see if they are Swiss pattern.
Norris Lockley..discovering something new everyday, Settle Uk