Please disregard my earlier post on this subject because I am obviously misinformed. I thought Jack was asking about the thin-band, 4-hole, all-silver front circa 1978/79. I have never seen a true black arm, 4-hole SR front because, as Tom notes, they don't exist. Perhaps I should employ more bandwidth in the future and my apologies to Tom.
George Allen Lexington, Ky USA
Tom Dalton wrote:
>Gang:
>
>Campy question here:
>
>4 hole SR front Derailleur
>
>What is the time line, rarity, and its guesstimated evaluation?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jack (Giacomo) Gabus
> Laguna Beach, CA
>
>
> I have bad news about that 4-hole SR front derailleur that you're holdin
g, Jack. It doesn't exist! Imagine that's hard to accept given that you h
ave one, but there you have it.
>
> Okay, now for the less smartaleckey answer.... As far as I know the 4-ho
le front derailleurs were discontinued before the SR model was introduced.
The only thing distinguishing the SR and Record front derailleurs of a giv
en vintage is that the arms of the SR were anodized gloss black to match th
e upper and lower body parts of the SR rear, while the Record was bare alum
inum. Now, if you have an actual 4-hole front with the black anodized arms
, well, that's either something very rare that undoes my understanding of t
he timeline, or it was pieced together. The inner arm is easily exchanged
with basic tools, and the outer would only require replacing one rivet, whi
ch I assume is not terribly hard. I would exect the peening on the rivet t
o look "wrong" if it was redone, unless someone took great pains.
>
> If you have a genuine SR 4-holer, I have no idea what the Japanese heavy
hitters would be willing to pay for it. It would depend on your ability t
o verify that it is authentic, and on the condition, of course, as well as
the whims of eBayers. The Record 4-holers sell for a premium over the 3-ho
lers in like condition, but often not a huge premium, given their relative
scarcity... though at other times the prmium is substantial. Again, you ne
ver know with eBay. The garden variety 4-holer should also have a narrow b
and clamp with no points. These tend to break. I've seen 4-holers with the
newer, pointed clamp that I took to be a replacement part, but they also m
ay have been factory. That is, Campy may have improved the clamp before mo
difying the cage to have 3-holes. On the other hand, I've seen 3-holers wi
th the narrow calmp, and it could be that Campy cahnged the cage first....
and as ever with Cmpy they could have waffled back and forth depending what
parts they
> found in a basket on the floor that week.
>
> As indicated above, the narrow clamp was deleted due to breakage. My un
derstanding is that the placement of the 4-hole resulted in chain rivets sn
agging on the cage and damaging it or snapping it off.
>
> The timeframe for the 4-holer is early post CPSC. I think Campy may hav
e briefly provided an old style hole-less front with the old larger clamp t
hat had the CPSC-required lip, but such a derailleur only shows up in Catal
ogs as Gran Sport (Nuovo Gran Sport). The 4-holer was around by 1978 or so
. I think it roughly coincides with the Nuovo Super Record rear and one-bo
lt post, but it could have been closer to the (earlier) date of the CPSC ch
anges, or even at that same time... I don't think it was later, after the i
ntro of the new rear der and post, but I could be mistaken. As I recall, t
he catalogs do not resolve this.
>
> The SR front came a little later... like 1981 or so. I think the 3-hole
Record was already around, but again I'm not certain. It is possible that
the SR front (with 3-holes) came out the same day as the Record 3-holer...
I just don't think that's the case, based on memory.
>
> One interesting thing to note is that the illustration of the SR front i
n at least one catalog depicts a four-hole cage. This is a drawing and we
know how unreliable the drawings are in the Campy catalogs. What this does
suggest, however, is that the cages still had 4-holes when the SR version
was first concieved. This sorta kinda supports the idea that the change to
3-holes came at the same time as the intro of the SR version.
>
> Anyway, there were obviously a few hard-to-date front derailleur changes
from the post-CPSC era through the early 80's. There was one more that fe
w people notice. The winged wheel logo on the cage comes in two sizes. Th
ere is a larger one that extends almost across the full height of the cage,
then there is one that is about 80% that size. It seems too small to me,
visually. Because the 4-holers all seem to have the big logo, I assume tha
t it is the earlier marking. As such, the 3 holers with the big logo I ass
ume to be older... and the smaller logo newer, of course. While I'm pretty
confident on this, it could always be the case that some die was switched
back and forth between the sizes over time. Again, however, all the old 4-
holers seem to have the big logo, so I think there was a distinct switch wh
en the "big logo" die(s) wore out. If it was a discete change, I have no
idea on the date, but it was after the intro of the SR front (which may or
may not have
> been later than the intro of the 3-hole Record) because both Record and S
R 3-holers come with both logo sizes. Whew....
>
> Tom "Giving Broderick a run for his money" Dalton
> Bethlehem, PA
>
>
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