@
obrentharris Good to hear from you again! I really appreciate your remembering the online add!
I'm looking forward to hearing more on the Stronglight chainset. I asked the gentlemen I bought the bike from what components he took off the bike before he sold it to me and he specified a TA chainset (but perhaps this wasn't original).
The trouble with the TOP 63 brakes being original to the bike is actually two fold. First, the seller specifically said that the brakes he took off the bike were marked Dural Forge MAFAC, not TOP 63 MAFAC. Moreover, the bike registration is from 1962. MAFAC debuted at the Paris bike show in 1962. This show is usually run in the late fall. So, even if the bike had TOP63's at some point, I can't imagine that the brakes were debuted at the show, the deal was stuck for the order, the brakes delivered (assuming already manufactured), paired to frames, exported to the US, finally assembled in Azuza, shipped to a nearby California bike shop, sold, and registered with the city all within the span of a couple months between the Paris show and the end of the 1962 registration year.
Sorry for the long winded theory there, but this I do enjoy this type of research, I must admit.