Ray, your experience is the same as mine. I visited Italy in spring 1989. I was departing that summer for the U.S. after a three year tour in Germany and thought I would stock up on stuff and bring it home in my household goods--no customs, let you tax payers pay for my shipping costs!! Got to Italy and whoa, was that a shocker. The prices were more than what I would pay through the catalogs in the U.S.! I did find some nice used bicycles, but got squeamish when I started worrying about whether they might have been heavily raced bicycles. I'm not sure whether my fear was justified, but at the time, my belief was that a heavily raced bicycle might have hairline stress fractures at the joints that might not be obvious to the eye. One thing I do remember is a new Colnago model that had Super Record rear derailleur and cheaper Campagnolo parts elsewhere that was selling very cheap (in Germany)--something like $800 for a new bike. Several Americans bought them. They had fade paint with spiderweb criss-cross. Lou Deeter, Orlando FL
"Five second fuses only last three seconds." - Infantry Journal
-----Original Message----- From: Raymond Dobbins <raydobbins2003@yahoo.com>
When I was in northern Italy in 1989, I noticed that Campagnolo component prices at the local Italian bike shops was comparable to those at US bike shops, and of course both were higher than those of catalog outfits like Nashbar and Performance. Based on that, I'm guessing that, at least starting in the late 80's, the the price schedules were applied depending on volume purchased rather than country of destination. Was it different before that, i.e, were prices really higher for the USA?
Ray Dobbins
Miami Florida