I've just bought a 1960's Roma and would like to pin down the date if possible. I've read through all the Legnano posts in the archives, which has been really helpful in confirming it to be from the "60's", and that it is a Roma. In the archives there was talk of a serial number database starting but it seemed to have petered put (at least as far as the archived posts go). Has anyone been compiling numbers?
The number on my bike is EY 3243. The number is stamped horizontally across the top back of the seat-tube. The seat-tube is 27.0. The original color of the bike is metallic blue.
The person I bought the bike from said she bought it used in about 1969. She rode it quite a bit through the 70's and some parts have been swapped out Although there's no way to tell for sure if these parts are original to the bike, it still wears a pair of 3-piece Gran Sport hubs with "59" stamped in the locknuts. A 151 crankset (which I'm not really familiar with the minutia on), but it does not have a cap on the back of the pedal hole. The front derailleur is an early Record with the cable stop. Campagnolo bar-end shifters which look just like the ones I've seen from the 70's. Although it has a neat Campy cable stop for the shifter cables that has an umbrella pump peg, which I've never seen before.
Also was curios to the correct (or accepted) pronunciation of "Legnano". I've always thought leg-na-no, but the owner of this bike kept calling it a "min-yawn-no" with much authority. In fact when she first called me to tell me about the bike I could not figure out what she had until I made her spell it out. I know there's an audio file of Italian pronunciations on the web but I do not have audio on my computer. Phonetic help will be appreciated.
Cheers, Jon Williams
Grants Pass OR USA