IMHO, it looks like the original dropouts might have been hacked off and "retrofitted" with another set of dropouts... Unless the 50's SCs just weren't built with aesthetics in mind. These dropout/stays junctions don't look very attractive to me:
http://www.cyclesdeoro.com/
Tam Pham Huntington Beach, CA - USA
On 5/3/07, Jay Sexton <jvs@sonic.net> wrote:
>
> Perhaps I am missing something - the bike being later seems to be rather
> obvious. The first clue is the lugs - they are the later style that came
> into use around the late 1950's. I think Pergolizzi's bike that was on ebay
> a few weeks ago had those earlier style lugs, and there are a number of
> Cinelli bikes out there that have them.
>
> Mebbe so, but what about those open C dropouts. Wouldn't these pre date
> the dropouts with the spring holes?
>
> Jay Sexton
> Sebastopol, CA
>
>
>
>
> To my eyes, the frame looks nearly identical to the one I had on ebay last
> week that didn't hit $700 (sold later off ebay for a good bit more, all very
> surprising). The dropouts on Dale's bike do look like later ones (the clue
> to the one I was selling as likely having had a dropout replacement I
> think). The one I sold was certainly built around 1959 to 1961. I'd peg the
> date of the bike in question as being from 1958 to even as late as 1967 -
> with the dropouts pushing the build date to the later period as wise Harvey
> Sachs points out.
>
> Cinelli Serial numbers from what I can tell are generally meaningless - a
> "stroll" through the Cupertino log book years ago showed very
> weak correlation between year and serial number, although bikes sold in
> very close time to one another often had close numbers. But those batches
> of similar numbers were not sequential. Quite maddening!
>
> Another clue would be if the bike in question accomodated the reproduction
> headbadge without difficulty - if so it is a late 50's bike or later. The
> really hard-to-find earlier bikes used a larger size headbadge with screws
> for fastening farther apart.
>
> Mike Kone in Boulder CO
> -------------- Original message --------------
> From: oroboyz@aol.com
>
>
> > > Harv:
> > >
> > > I hear this is the case:
> > > << there were much earlier drop-outs without the boss and hole. >>
> > >
> > > Open C is the clue there (I am told)
> > >
> > >
> > > Dale Brown
> > > Greensboro, North Carolina USA