To address both George Allen's and Jack Gabus's points, more or less:
Panto'd parts were available separately back in the day. But this does not relate, in particular, to the problem of reproductions.
Jack makes a key point, does the reproduced item look *exactly* like the original? Which was one of the points I was attempting to make in my initial post on the subject.
If a repro cannot be differentiated from an original, then it might be more desirable for a period-correct restoration, especially since most originals will be shopworn or used in some way. Such originals look best on bikes that looks equally used. If a repro looks new, and/or was done on an NOS part, I could see using it for a restoration if it could not be differentiated from an original. The bigger question might be: what would I pay for such a perfect reproduction?
Nonetheless, the main issue here is: whatever the item may be, it's helpful if it's described accurately. The market of buyers should have all the relevant information before making up its collective mind about whether to buy something, and what that something may be worth.
Clearly originals from the day will be worth more, most of the time, for all the usual reasons. Reproductions will usually be worth much less, regardless of the time and effort that went into them. This seems self-evident.
I should also point out that if you own your own pantographing machine (and I know of a couple of collectors who do), then tooling cost is not much...time-cost would be significant though.
Where Alexx and Casanova are getting this stuff, I have no idea. But even if they were getting the stuff from the very same supplier who did the panto'd parts for italian bike makers back in the '70s, it's still not *original* because it wasn't panto'd back in the day. Chronology matters here.
If I made a violin that in every meaningful way (a bit of a syntactical trap, that, but no matter) was a Stradivari, and, moreover, it *sounded* exactly like a prime Stradivari from the late 17th century...and looked like one too, if I told a buyer what it was, it would, at best, sell for a small fraction of the price of a real stradivari. Does this make sense? Depends on how you look at these things.
The analogy is not exact, but you get the point..Original is original is original. Period. No repro is original, no matter how much someone might wish it to be.
Some may say "who cares about that?" I say, I care. And a lot of other people do too. And that's the point here, seems to me. A lot of money can be involved. And I imagine most everyone would care about that.
Charles Andrews
Los Angeles