AZORCH

Here's the issue: hand-crafted Italian bike - a 1988 (presumably) Freschi Supreme Super Cromo, built with Columbus tubing. The fork decals are very much intact and say "Forcella Originale" but the seat tube decal has, unfortunately, flaked very badly; there's only bits and pieces left and I would like to replace it before I touch up the surrounding paint. By any chance, does anyone know which seat tube decal is paired with the "Forcella Originale"? I'd sure appreciate a good visual reference so I can create a replacement water decal.

rothenfield1

I did a search of "Forcella Originale" and came up with this extensive Forum thread about Columbus tubing with contributions from some C&V heavy hitters. I just scanned it, but there appears to be several links to various Columbus decal images. About half way down is a post that references "Forcella Originale" associated with SL tubing.
https://www.bikeforums.net/archive/in.../t-304802.html

JohnDThompson 

For many years Columbus decals did not distinguish between their various tubing offerings. The term "Forcella Originale" simply means the blade profile is Columbus' original design, often referred to as "Continental Oval" as opposed to Reynolds' "Imperial Oval" profile. Both start out as 22mm diameter tubes and are then tapered and squeezed to produce the oval profile. You can see the difference here (Reynolds' "Imperial" on the left; Columbus "Continental" on the right):

Returning to your question, if your fork decal looks like this:


The seat tube decal should look like this:


And it could refer to either SL or SP tubing. The only way to tell with certainty is to chop up the frame and measure the wall thickness.

AZORCH

Perfect! I'd previously found this terrific Flickr photo set of various Columbus decals, but it didn't include the fork decals with the "Forcella Originale" designation - nor did it provide me with any way of figuring out the important missing piece: which decal design was originally on my seat tube. I've compared the proportions of the decal you represented above, and it appears to be an exact fit to the remaining bits of the original decal. My frame is almost entirely chrome, except for a bit of black paint around the top of the seat tube and around the bottom bracket. The paint is flaking and - of course! - that is precisely where the original Columbus decal was adhered!

AZORCH

...any chance you have a high resolution version of this you'd care to share?

Mike01

Before you guys start making copies of that seat-tube decal, I must point out that the spelling is wrong. It should read GARANTITI, not GARANATITI!

AZORCH

Thank you for pointing that out!!! So my question becomes: does anyone have a good, high quality (and resolution) image of the correct decal?