Hi Crew,
Just received a 1973 Colnago frame from the Netherlands which has fully
chromed forks and chromed seat and chainstay treatment similar to what
you might find on a typical Colnago Super 5 years younger. Firstly, yes,
the frame IS a 1973. My friend John Murray up a State has an identical
frame (sans chrome) and the fork tangs, fork crown, lug cut-outs, BB
shell and lack of braze-ons as well as John's exhaustive research into
dating these early Colnagos confirm its vintage. If it was chromed at
some later point it would have had to have been partially dipped (not a
common practice on refurbed frames) and there are no signs of extra
linishing - as the drop out stampings are clean and well defined.
I recall a comment on the CR list some while back suggesting that early
Euro delivery frames came out with more chrome than export models?
I have trawled through a lot of images of early Colnagos and chrome just
doesn't seem to be evident in the way it is on my frame.
Any comments?
BTW, if anyone wants to contribute to John Murray's work on defining
aspects of early Colnago frames, let me know and I will hook you up.
Eric Elman has done some great work on this same subject and for
Colnago-istas it would be nice to see it fleshed out further.
Greg Softley
Coffs Harbour
Australia