All of the Universal calipers I've worked on have always had blue paint fills on the caliper arm lettering, and blue lettering on the outer thrust washer on the pivot bolt.
I started cleaning up the calipers from my 1960 Legnano today and the lettering is filled with red paint. Also both calipers had a red anodized thrust washer. The washer had no lettering left, the red only showed on the backside. When I first pulled them apart I figured somebody swapped in some Weinmann's at some point. But then I saw the red fills on the caliper, so.....
Anyway, I'd like to know if this is original for the period? It does not seem like the type of bike that somebody would have "detailed" with different color paint on something like that. And I pretty sure the brakes are original to the bike.
I had my bottle of Testor's blue out all ready for the rebuild, but if they were red I'll leave as-is. Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks much, Jon Williams (aka Otis) Grants Pass OR USA
Here's a couple of pics of the build so far:
http://www.otis.g2solutions.biz/
http://www.otis.g2solutions.biz/
http://www.otis.g2solutions.biz/
http://www.otis.g2solutions.biz/