Originally Posted by
Sactown_Albert
I’ve always wondered what made an Allegro special different from an Allegro. The elaborateness of the paint and chrome seems to be the distinguishing factor.
From what I have seen, Allegro used the same tubing, lugs and dropouts on a ALL of their 531-tubed racing bikes, and yes, the differences were mostly cosmetic coupled with nicer parts on the fancier models.
Originally Posted by
droppedandlost
Were Nervex lugs an option or were they for a different model? My frame looks identical except for having Nervex lugs.
I don't know whose lugs Allegro used in their '30s and '40s racing bikes - Ekla? Agrati? Someone else? From what I have seen, Allegro used Nervex Professional lugs from the very late 40s/early 50s until c.1960, when they switched over to Bocama Model 14 type II. Those were chromed or not depending on how fancy that specific variant was, different paint treatments, etc. - but the same Bocama lugs until c.1974, when Allegro appears to have switched to Bocama Professionals, the de-facto standard lug for a while there. As a side note, about the only other company I can think of that used these lugs for a full 531 frameset was Jeunet for
some examples of the model 630. It was used as a second-tier lugset or a substitute standard by a lot of makers including Raleigh and Peugeot. To my knowledge ONLY Allegro used this lugset on their flagship bikes.
Here's the aforementioned Google sheet I did a while back - I don't think I've added to it lately, and already some of the image links are gone, but it should help. Any date codes from original parts, and especially Campagnolo bits, do a lot to firm up the production dates.