What about TA then? From what I've seen, the variety of TA offerings makes Campy crank options look meager. I'm not even sure any one person at TA knew all the items they offered at a given time. Leaves one wondering who the heck ever wanted some of the TA variations.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com> wrote: One thing that is cool about Campy.... errr, okay, that WAS cool about Campy, is that they offered their parts in so many configurations. Hubs in English, French and Italian threads, high and low flange, with 24, 28, 32, 36, or 40 holes in a range of spacings. Cranks from 160mm to 180mm in 2.5 mm increments and the rings of your choice, from 41t to 60t (at one point), maybe French threads?. Oversized/undersized BB and headsets parts. Posts in 0.2mm increments, a couple of rail spacings, two lengths... SL variants. A zillion different pump heads, pump clips, clamps and cable guides, seat binders... Then there is the track stuff, with inch pitch stuff in 1/8" AND 3/16", later some 3/32" stuff, steel and alloy cogs. NR and SR rings in two widths... this is all based on the catalogs... and this is part of what makes studying those old catalogs really fun (to some). Campy's "thing" seemed to be making stuff that was quite durable, making it reasonable serviceable and making spares widely available, but they also offered amazing variety, apparently for the benefit of competitive riders. The range of track options certainly emphasizes this. The idea that they made OS BB cups for frames gone bad is in stark contrast to current philosophy.
Okay, so what's the point? My pointy is that there are probably some very rare items out there, like (hypothetically) a 60 tooth 1" x 3/16" pista ring, or a 25.6mm shorty post with narrow rail spacing or a 0.5mm OS French BB. These are not items people needed very often and they are not items sought after today. Today, the broadly sought after items tend to be the ones that were in wide use "in the day" but are now all used up and hard to find (SR headsets, globe logo hoods). On the other hand, the REALLY, REALLY shought after stuff is clearly the "early variant" stuff. I guess this is obvious, but consider why this might be the case:
1) What collector of Campy wouldn't want the first version of a given part. The first gen alloy crank from 1958 can fetch $1,000 in good shape, in part because it is the grandaddy of thousands of similar (but not identical) Record cranks that were made over the next 30 years.
2) Ealry versions are the oldest, and age implies that the parts have had more time to be used up/worn out/damaged/lost in a Dutch fireworks accident... Also, it's my conjecture that back in the day riders would ride the living be-jeesus out of their parts. We were less wealthy then.. in the USA, and certyainly in Europe.
3) Many early variants were flawed and were revised before many were produced. Look at the first gen SL pedals. Those couldn't have been made for long given how scarce they are now, and looking at a set you can see why they might have had problems. A corollary here is that flawed early variants that fail... well, they fail, and end up being tossed.
So, for rare and sought after, I point to things like:
The no-logo Record brakes, the first gen Record cranks, the original version of the Gran Sport rear der (whichever one that was).
Then there were some one-offs, limited production team-only stuff, and the prototypes. Black annodized SR rings anyone? SL post with scale? Aluminum Con Dentes? (At least this last example actually exists).
The truly old stuff from before WW2 is probably even rarer than the "frist gen" examples I cite. At that point production was probably tiny, and there were distinct French and Italian versions of some parts, one presumably now rarer than teh other, depending on the part. So much work was done by hand, that I imagine it's hard to define a real variant.
Anyway, Porta Catenas are widely available, as are Delta brakes. The stuff we see all the time on eBay probably doen't come close to rare by Campy standards.
Then there's always stuff from the what-were-they-thinking-80s. How about a ti railed inflatable saddle in blue? A set of large flange Triomphe hubs in french thread? A Braze-on Victory front derailleur for triple? Not that I'm sure these things are really in the catalogs, I'd have to check, but Campy were certainly still offering a lot of low-demand options even when they started to move into the midmarket.
Tom Dalton Bethlehem, PA USA
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