I just went into the basement. peered at my Zeus crankset and found that although identical on the outside with nice deep flutes...one is marked with what appears to be a small b. and the other c. They have the old globe design. So are these in actuality mismatched crankarms or just one year apart and released together.
Walter Skrzypek
Falls Creek, Pa
http://www.fixedgearhooligans.com
> Regarding Zeus Crank Letter Codes:
>
> I still believe that the year 1970 is represented by an "a" and so on,
> as Paul refers to in his message (below).
>
> The main evidence is that the most eye-catching of the Zeus-2000
> cranks, the one that has the arms slotted all-the-way-through -- has a "g"
> stamp on it in the few examples I've seen, and I believe that this version
> of the crank was only made for a short time circa 1976.
>
> Concerning the start date, 1970 seems to be the year that Zeus got
> serious about exporting. The 101 catalog was printed that year (the
> catalog is undated but mentions the world championship ride of Harm
> Ottenbros thus it must be post 1969, and it can't be too much later than
> 1970 since the 102 catalog has a print date of 1972 on the last page, the
> 103 catalog is dated July 1977, and the 103 catalog is dated June 1980..
>
> I have an un-lettered Zeus crank (the Competition model) which is
> plausibly pre-1970.
>
> Another rough way of dating the upper-model Zeus cranks is via the
> changing logos. The 101 and 102 catalogs show the world logo on the
> cranks. The 103 catalog shows the oval logo on the cranks (but in my
> experience the rings often still have the world logo). The 104 catalog
> shows a Z-in-a-circle logo on the cranks.
>
> The lower models of cranks are harder to track because the same crank
> seems to have been offered as a criterium in the early 70's, a gran sport
> in the mid 70's, and a new racer in the early 80's.
>
> Brad Stockwell
> Palo Alto
>
>
> pfl <plee7302@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> ... Never seen (or perhaps never noticed) a Zeus part stamped "C"
> before (could the "BS" be worn away? <<
>
> There's an interesting posting in the CR archives dated 11/18/2001 by
> Bradford Stockwell entitled "Dating Zeus Cranks, '70 to '82" in which
> he hypothesizes on if/what date these marks might refer to, and asks
> for corroboration.
>
> I have 1 "a" with the early Zeus-in-globe logo, 2 "c"s with later
> Zeus-in-oval, 2 "f"s NIB set Zeus-in-oval, 1 "m" Zeus-in-oval and 1
> "n" Zeus-in-oval. All have BSC markings.
>
> By Brad's thinking these would be 1970, 1972, 1975, 1982 and 1983.
>
> Paul Lee
> High Point, NC
>
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