We recently had a thread about the faux lugged alloy AVA "Death Stem". My contention that AVA was only one of many French companies selling nearly identical stems of this type was supported by examples from several other CR members.
I recenly found an eBay store offering eight of these stems, NOS, marked as various brands. They were all cheap, no doubt owing to the bad reputation of these stems. As I have never been able to work up the level of paranoia that some hold in regard to these stems, I bought all eight.
Received the lot today. All are essentially identical in design and fabrication, and marked as follows:
One genuine AVA, the "classic"
Two BF, which I think is Belleri Freres, i.e. early Belleri
One ATAX
One Pivo
One marked "Guid", which may loosely translate as "stem" - how profound.
One marked only with an arrow on each side
One marked SR and "Jun", the Japanese cared enough to copy the best
So, I may eventually cash in my chips and move on to that great swap meet in the sky when one of these fails on a 70 kph downhill. But the older I get the more I think that there are much worse ways to go.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Republica de Tejas