Originally Posted by T-Mar

+1, it's a Nishiki Maxima. The Ultimate was Japanese manufacture. The Maxima and Cervino were Italian manufactured but the Cervino had different frame characteristics. This looks like a near perfect match for my Maxima; Columbus tubing, Nishiki embossing only on the fork crown, Portacatena dropouts, same BB tunnels. same brake bridge, same stay end to dropout transitions, same seat stay caps. Despite being manufactured in Italy, mine had an English BB shell.

These frames appear to have been a result of the frustration experienced by the USA marketing brands to crack the high end market and add prestige to their brands. When Japanese manufactured frames with Japanese components didn't achieve the desired market penetration, they went with Japanese manufactured frames using Campagnolo groups and, in some cases, Columbus tubing. When that failed, relatively speaking, they sourced the frames from Italy. Similar approaches were used by Lotus.and Centurion. Ironically, just as Centurion and Lotus were trying this last approach, the Japanese successfully cracked the high end market, courtesy of Shimano New Dura-Ace (7400 series ) and Tange Prestige, effectively ending the trend to Italian sourcing and causing the leading USA marketing brands to revert to Japan for their high end models.