- Joined
- Sep 17, 2013
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- 4,210
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My son bought this bike frame and shipped it to me to fix up for him. He was told it originally had wood wheels and was from the 1920s. It has a very odd headset, no cups but races pressed onto the head tube lugs. It has a hole of an oil cup on the BB and a large drain hole in the under side of the BB. It has track type drop outs and an Italian bottom bracket. It had two coats of spray bomb that I removed. The tubing is stamped EXTRASTAHLROHR TITANUS, which is 1930s Italian tubing, seamless and very high quality, equal to the Columbus tubing 50 years later. It is nickel plated and the lugs were originally red. He was told it was a German track bike but the fork is drilled for a brake and there are brazed on water bottle mounts with pan head slotted screws. It's not German but the tubing name probably confused the previous owner. My research told me that braze on water bottle holders were rare before 1960. I don't know how rare? My question is could these braze on bottle mounts be original?