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Can anyone provide a second (or third etc.) opinion on the type of Colnago frame?

It looks to be identical to an early 80’s Super but has oval chain stay tubes, a braze on front derailleur mount and is extremely lightweight. Is there a chance it could be a Mexico? Perhaps having had a respray?

Cheers.

Top Tube

Lugs

Fork crown

Chain stay right

Down tube

Chain stay bridge

Chain stay left

BB shell

Seat tube lug

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  • Serial number / markings? have a look at the chain stay end, or under the bottom bracket.
    – EarlGrey
    Sep 9, 2021 at 7:00
  • Nothing at the bottom bracket other than the club cut out. Drop out says Q533 EV. Campagnolo, which leads me to believe it’s drop out related rather than frame related. None the less, is there somewhere I can look these number up online? My googling is coming up dry
    – Mech_smith
    Sep 9, 2021 at 21:56
  • Here you can have a look at a Colnago Nuovo Mexico flickr.com/photos/141824573@N06/albums With the help of google translate, I think you will have some luck in subscribing to the italian forum about racing bike bdc-mag.com/forum and asking there you will find some real experts on Colnago. I only suggest you to write in italian (via google translate) otherwise they may think your post is a spam or scam tentative. Good luck, nice bike!
    – EarlGrey
    Sep 10, 2021 at 8:11

2 Answers 2

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It looks a lot like this 1983 Colnago Super

enter image description here

Browsing the catalogs at bulgier or 2velo.com it is sometimes difficult to tell one from another. This looked like a match because of:

  • The chrome chain stay with "Colnago" stamped in it
  • The joint where the seat stays meet the seat tube looks similar
  • The word "Colnago" is stamped into the top of the seat stay

A key difference is that the fork in the picture is all chrome. Since the frame in the original post has been painted it's hard to know if that difference is critical.

Here is an article on veloclassics.blogspot.com with many photographs

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  • It looks to me that the super in general had not the C with the logo where the blade joins the fork crown, as your pic shows, while OP's bicycle has space for that (the reason I think it is a Nuovo Mexico). Yes, one can always take the fork only... Off topic, thanks for the catalog, the one in page 6, with the Ferrari Colnago is Ernesto Colnago in person!
    – EarlGrey
    Sep 14, 2021 at 8:20
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According to this page, you can distinguish between a Super and a Mexico based on some crimps

  • the Colnago Super can be identified from one crimp either side and center on the top tube, one either side and center on the down tube, and inside the chain stays
  • a Colnago Nuovo Mexico has two crimps either side and center on the top tube, 2 crimps off center either side of the down tube (so dt has 4 crimps in total!) , and none inside the chain stays.

At least it seem that it can be said that the bike is pre-1985, because according to the same site "later than 83/84 Colnago had rounded seat stay caps, instead of the stamped ones" like yours.

Have a careful look at the site I mentioned above: there are two very similar bikes, both painted with identical blue color but one is a Super and the other is a Mexico. It should help identifying your bicycle. Good luck and please come back with your findings!

EDIT:

You may have a look at this site,

https://www.cycling-obsession.com/how-to-identify-a-colnago-vintage-bike/

where a lot of useful information and pictures of Colnago of various years are published.

I still think yours can be a Mexico, although this site says that the spool-shaped bridge between chainstays is usually found on the Super.

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