> I remember several weeks ago someone on the list described the first
> version of the Record front derailleur. They described the derailleur
> as having chrome pivot arms and the long cable stop. I am familiar with
> the rare cable stop derailleur, but this was the first time I had heard
> about chrome pivot arms. Well, I was looking at some of my parts
> (spring cleaning) and found an interesting front Record derailleur in my
> stash. It does not include the cable stop, but has chromed pivot arms
> as apposed to alloy arms. The shape of the clamp support held up
> against the seat tube on the drive side (where the cable stop arm would
> be located) is shaped differently too. Instead of the flat box-shaped
> bottom seen on my other front Record derailleurs, this derailleur's
> support is shaped like a sharks fin. No indication of file marks or
> broken cable stop. Additionally, the derailleur has no 'C' clip to hold
> the arms in place so one would think this is pre '73-'74. This also
> leads me to believe this is not a lower level Campy derailleur from the
> mid 80's, i.e. 980 derailleur. Is this perhaps a transition piece
> from the first Record derailleur w/cable stop to the more common pre '74
> Record derailleurs without 'C' clip? Or perhaps someone just swapped
> parts?! Anyone have an idea what this is?
>
>
>
>
>
> Regards, Rich Robinson
Having been involved in a number of these discussions in the past year or so, the permutations of Record front derailleurs are quite numerous and elude arrangement into a neat timeline. Chrome arms appear earlier and later, slots appeared in the integral stops at some point, the shape of the lower pivot body changed (but some non-cable stop derailleurs have the earlier pivot body). Maybe "transition" was the norm. Certainly, derailleurs could have been repaired with later parts. Having said that, here's my guess re: your derailleur. I believe the ones with the extension tang you describe (where the cable stop would have been previously) and a chromed upper pivot arm would likely date from the very late 60s-very early 70s. Maybe '69-70. I believe I've seen one on a bike with a "no-date" Nuovo Record rear derailleur. I'm sure the real Campagnolo experts will weigh in expertly (I'm certainly not one of them).
Ed Granger
Lancaster, PA, USA