Marty, There were indeed several Merckx models produced by Falcon. Ernie Clements had bought about 60,000 sets of stickers at £1 a throw so had to make that money back somehow! Apparently his brother Frank had only ordered 30,000 but Ernie used to think big. In an undated Merckx catalogue, but pre 1973, and showing the great man in Molteni strip, there are 8 models listed. Top of range Super Competition, 531 DB, oval pattern Italian style forks and full Campag, Giro D'Italia, Competiton, Kermesse 531 plain, Supporter, Junior racer and two ladies models - Club Special and Special. How they compared with Kessels, I have no idea and would go along with Dale on that issue (I am not a particular fan of Falcon, just happen to be researching them. I do know that Kessels visited Barton with Eddy as I have sevearl photos of them with Ernie and Frank. I think he visited Barton 5 or 6 times.
From: mmeison@aol.com To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]Merckx, Falcon and Themes Message-ID: <8C7A2F68DAA9E0D-151C-5984@MBLK-M21.sysops.aol.com> In-Reply-To: <MONKEYFOODp8ARf3sll00003c10@monkeyfood.nt.phred.org> References: <MONKEYFOODp8ARf3sll00003c10@monkeyfood.nt.phred.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: list Message: 1
Snip: Without hurting Falcon fans' feelings, the Kessels were more refined and carefully built (by way of apology, that was during the bike boom days and the bigger factories were at max production...)
Weren't there a few different levels of the Falcon built Merckx frames?
So we are going to spotlight antidiluvian randonneurs at Cirque?
Marty Eison