georgica

Hi everyone !

Its my first post on Bikeforums, and hopefully I chose the right spot for posting this. Usually I try to find information on the internet from what's been already written rather than to ask questions, but this bike's got me real questioned, and google doesn't seem to be of much help finding info. A dutch site suggest Pagnini was a brand by Plum Vainqueur which later got rebranded to Paganini for more italian sounding. But this information seems incomplete if not mistaken. I found this bike on a local 'flea market' site. It seemed to be an "Atala" with pantographed parts but upon closer inspection under the Atala decals, the shadows of the former Pagnini decals can be observed, not mentioning the pantographed seat stays with Pagnini. Crankset has the big chain ring branded with Pagnini Aladino, shifters are drilled and painted yellow. Seatpost has a beautiful work of pantography and so does the stem (handwritten panto "Pagnini") and a flag of Italy on top. The bike is Campagnolo Nuovo Record fully equipped with tubulars and is of a very light weight for its age (9700 grams). some pictures you can see here. If You have any information on identifying this bike, its history and maybe why such interesting work of a bike is so less known. Some help of finding the coresponding decals for Pagnini would also be great. Thank You !

Juha

Cheers georgica, welcome to Bike Forums.

I'm moving this to Classic & Vintage (from Introductions) where you will get better replies to your questions.

--Juha, a Forum Mod

Italuminium

First of all, welcome and my compliments for your nice pictures.

Nice bike, I've heard the story before about it being a Dutch brand that is made to sound Italian. A LBS here has a nice one in great condition on display, owned by the shop owner (for sale now actually). His is full Campagnolo Nuovo Record, as your bike likely was before the bars were swapped out for those Leader bars (this bike deserves drop bars!)

Your bike has been badly re-decaled: the Columbus sticker is actually made for a front fork! Replacement decals will be hard to find, but as the outlines of the old decals are still pretty traceable underneath it's possible to get a printing shop to make replacements.

Lacumo

Welcome to BF!

unworthy1

There's two brands (AFAIK) that are confused: one is this Pagnini (Aladino) and judging by the fleur-de-lys it may be from Florence (Firenze) or nearby.
The other is Paganini and this is the brand associated with Plum Vanquer and often made in Italy (by a contractor like Billato) for sale by that shop in Benelux...also a very nice frame but I think this Pagnini may be a little nicer.
At least that's how I understand it...in either case, not an Atala (and that Columbus seat tube decal belongs on the fork blade!)

georgica

Thanks so much for the replies I didn't expect so quick to appear. And thanks also for the welcome messages. Its odd I havn't used bike forums (nor other forums) before, but it feels well so far .

I added the rest of the photos that I consider revealing about the Pagnini bike. I'm excited by the idea that this bike might be italian pure blood after all the confusion with Paganini. I like the idea with the Fleur-de-Lys and Florence.

Can I see the pictures of the lbs(what's that?) that has one in top condition? I have found only one Pagnini on the internet, belonging to a guy in Holland, Piete i believe , a collector, I found the images on Italienische race fietsen blog .

It would be of maximum utility if one of those Pagnini owners could photograph (as perpendicular as possible) the head tube decals, and the down tube / seat tube decals. I have a friend who might be able to help me re build them.

unworthy1

there was one mention of a Pagnini that was sold to a member of the CR List by another member who lives in (or near) Firenze. The seller didn't know much about the frame but he bought it in Firenze (Florence), so the "fleur" is very likely a symbol of its place of origin.
LBS is a Local Bike Shop.

unworthy1

Some more interesting details are the fact that it has over-BB-cable routing for the RD yet a FD tab and recessed Allen-bolt brakes plus the driveside dropout does not seem to have the portacatena holes.
This is a transition-period ('70s to '80s)and you might be able to determine the year it was made pretty closely if you research those parts.

Geekride

I bought a Pagnini also havé not received It yét

Cwurfel

I also have a Pagnini bike (Aladino) properly decaled and it’s fantastic

Munny

I started to read before realizing that this is an old content surfacing again.

This has nothing to do with the Paganini belgian brand (many belgian but Italian sounding brands in that period)
I was surprise to see the frame looking like a Viner

Cwurfel

This system will not post my photo because it says I didn’t post enough but I have many photos of a much nicer example of the Pagnini along with a photo of the man I believe may be Aladino Pagnini
if anyone want I could email them.

carl

unworthy1

Or just do 7 more posts and you can upload all your photos (which we'd love to see).

Cwurfel

Ok thanks

Cwurfel

ok thank you

Chombi1 

OT, but this just literally hit me when looming at pics of the beautifully detailed topic bike.
Is it just me, or are these elaboratively pantographed and chromed Italian C&V bikes are starting to look and feel like something we consider as "Victorian"??

Not meant to be a negative comment. Just a sort of new perception I'm seeming to develop on the aesthetics on such bikes.

Additionally, I'm really understanding now why my avid cyclist nephew, who owns/rides an uber CF disc brakes Canyon, might never develop the taste for our C&V steel bikes like the topic bike. All the chrome, fancy paint, decals and pantographing must look really superfluous to him.

So, most likely, we are "it" for any substantial numbers of people that will really appreciate these classic steel bikes. I just wonder where all our bikes will end up when we're all gone. Sure the really riveted stuff like Masis and Colnagos will find a place in the heart of some future collectors, but what happens to the Olmos, Vitus, ALANS, Bennottos, and the "regular" Peugeots and Gitanes. As it is, really nice bike that just happen to have unfamiliar names are finding it hard to attract enough people.

Cwurfel

Ok we are I believe this could be one of very few, as my theory is that he was a racer who started and stopped at bike building.

Chombi1 

Trying to make it in the bike building business might have been quite a challenge in Italy, as there were so many of them. I suspect that many builders ran small fly by night operations that just came and went very quickly, because of this be cause the business was just too hard to sustain.
Only thing that can make it easier is if one managed to set up marketing and sales to other countries like the US, in enough volumes, and not many people were capable of setting those up.

unworthy1

Fascinating that yours has the same pearl white paint and pantographed chainrings and seatpost as the OP's "Atala" re-brand, same blue-in-painted lug and BB shell piercings, plus it even has the "mistake" fork blade decal on the seat tube and the same style cut-away Campy shift levers! TWINS!

Cwurfel

Yes same thing on that fork decal, extremely strange who knows why, there is so much detail here I can’t imagine someone made up Pagnini.. if that’s what you are thinking, like for what? And even detail the stay? Not likely.

unworthy1

Nope I was just thinking these 2 must have been the same model (maybe the ONLY model) and built right around the same time to have all these details in common. I wonder who was the contractor who made them (looks like high-quality Italian building and detailing), we may never know?

Cwurfel

It just hit me that you said Contractor... that’s right it’s highly likely that this guy had these bikes built under his name and wanted them to be a certain level of build.
i would love to know who it could be near Florence.

cudak888 

I've been all over the internet and can't find these pictures. https://ciclisti.eu is dead. How old are these pictures and where do they come from?

Going by your previous posts, I'm assuming this is your bike, but there's something I can't ignore:

It's the same bike. For everyone else trying to comprehend what I just postulated, just look at those small nicks in the top tube paint. They're present in the same locations on the OP's as-seen-on-the-online-flea-market-ad Pagnini:



Pantographing is identical too, including the inconsistencies, and I've never seen someone paint the knuckles of an NR to make it look like a first-gen Super Record RD.

Usually, bikes go from Craigslist to white backgrounds, not the other way around. It would be interesting to know what happened in this bike's life for it to fall down the totem pole...

-Kurt

Cwurfel

Wow looks like this guy also picked up a Matollini bike maybe he flipped it.
its still weird though, I guess it means he made up the decals and sold it to me, not very profitable in my opinion.
but I guess if your broke...
doesnt help me understand what a Pagnini is.

Drillium Dude 

College campus bike racks is my wild guess

DD