ericlowney 

Maybe a dumb question, but what is the significance behind many frames having playing card symbols on them? Colnago, De Rosa, and a recent build by Darrell Llewellyn McCulloch has them. Is there any significance or story behind playing cards and bikes? I had assumed Colnago's symbol was the club, DeRosa the heart, but now I'm wondering after seeing other bikes with them.

I'm attaching some pictures from Darrell's post, beautiful bike if you have not seen it.

thinktubes 

I seem to remember a manufacturer whose motto was “the winning hand”

Can’t recall who…

madpogue 

I just thought they all liked Lucky Charms cereal (shrug).....

Drillium Dude 

In the case of Colnago, the club is not derived from the playing card suit: Colnago Club Logo

DD

djkashuba 

Good question/ subject. Here is a Ron Cooper:


Ron Cooper by djk762, on Flickr

SurferRosa

No idea, just wish my bikes had them.

gearbasher

Don't forget Confente.

unworthy1

not to mention Ciocc (Mr. Poker Face), diamond used on several Italian marques then copied by Miyata, Richard Sachs first offering the "full suit " fork tangs, Mario Confente (and copy cats) the spade...but if you want a backstory, here's one I have heard, but take it with a grain of hearsay salt:

The pro riders often had downtime between legs especially on long tours, plus travel days.

Since they were a very competitive lot they frequently played cards, including high-stakes gambling games, with team mates as well as with rivals.
In some cases the games become just as important as the actual racing, and some of the so-so riders were absolute "Aces" at gambling, so adopted the card suits as their own marques...maybe just to rub that in their rivals' faces, maybe to promote themselves with a ref to their best known quality.

Doesn't explain why a mechanic (Ernesto Colnago) would have one of the earliest and best known, but apparently his was not "won by way of card playing".

As with all these tales of yore and lore: YMMV

Also worth noting that the 4 suits on playing cards that we in NorAm and some places in Europe are familiar with are not universal symbols , nor go by the same names. And some common symbols like the fleur de lys we think of as "France, New Orleans and that football team, maybe the old Boy Scouts of America" means Firenze (Florence) to Italians...I'm sure there are dozens more like this.

SurferRosa

Why is one shifter cutout white and the other blue?

madpogue 

They're both cut out (rather brutally, IMHO, given that it's right over the Campag branding). That's the blue of the head tube you're seeing through the cut-out on the rear shifter.

smd4

SurferRosa was being sarcastic…

Spaghetti Legs 

I’d read somewhere the Colnago logo came about because it was easy to stamp - 3 circles and a triangle. Maybe the other brands, ahem, followed suit (or not I guess).

The Golden Boy 

You know I'm born to lose
And gamblin' is for fools
but that's the way I like it, baby
I don't want to live forever.

gearbasher

I wonder if they used "Bicycle" playing cards?

iab

Where did this start, Italy? Which builder was the first (ish) to use a playing card cutout?

P!N20

I just thought the card suits were a metaphor for 'playing your hand' in a race, not to mention showing your poker face when you can't let the others know you're deep in the hurt locker.

Fredo76

When I was building my frame with Colin Laing when I was eighteen, I cut and shaped hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds, because that was what was done so often by other builders those days. You could almost call them customary for hand-built frames. I also did smaller ones on the smaller points of my head lugs. Plus a star on the seat lug, and four-leaf clovers on the fork crown. Careful powder coating preserved them well, for the most part.

When a guy at the bike shop was looking at it and said "Lucky Charms!" I had to laugh because it is so true...



Lucky Charms!

Colin once told me he made lug cutouts of hands, for a hand-surgeon customer.

steelbikeguy

an ad, and a press release(?) that appeared in Asphalt magazine volume 1. Note that the fork tangs with the card suits is part of the set.
This is from 2002, well after this sort of thing began, though.





Steve in Peoria

Drillium Dude 

Mr. Sachs has previously gone on record about those card suit fork tangs. To summarize: he was concerned about dwindling supplies and bought up a large stock of them, passing them along to others here and there in addition to incorporating them into his own forks. Of course, he finishes them to a high degree, which is why the features look different than most brazed straight out of the box.

Still don't know who produced them originally (tho mine grace a Saba, and Saba manufactured a range of frame fittings), but I'm sure he knows. Anyway, they've been available to frame builders for a long, long time (my frame is from 1979).

Pics:





Pretty sure Proteus supplied these with their frame kits, too. In any case, on this very Forum, I recall seeing these on a Proteus frame, used as reinforcing at the lugs (!) IIRC.

DD

unworthy1

and so i stand corrected (not the 1st or the last time!) but when Richard Sachs offered those fork tangs that was the first time I saw the "full suit" of symbols in a row. But now that you mention it I do recall he was producing his own to restore stock (that somebody else had been making) and to sell the the trade.
This thread jogged another brand not often mentioned: Quattro Assi (four aces) that was a US house brand (W.M. Lewis Imports?) but frames made in Italy (IIRC)

MauriceMoss

Poker references in cycling (as well as other sports) in Italy go a long way back. 'Five of a kind' is called pokerissimo in Italian and is used both for 5 victories in a season but also for something like 5 goals in a soccer match or winning 5 soccer cups.

In cycling, you'll find references to assi (aces), poker di vittorie and pokerissimo going back to Constante Girardengo and Alfredo Binda, but especially with Fausto Coppi. One of Coppi's first post WWII victories was at the Circuito degli assi race in Milan in 1945.
Bianchi did a 'pokerissimo' promo poster celebrating Coppi's major victories in 1947, showing 4 aces and a joker (all featuring Coppi) - see the pic below.


Not sure if the use of all 4 card suits on actual bicycles goes back further than the late 40s, but the earliest example I know of is on Fausto Coppi's personal track bike from 1949 (known as 'Quattro Assi'/Four Aces). This frame was made by Carlo (and his son Beppe) Drali for their friend Fausto. It's different from the other 'reparto corse' built Bianchis (by Valsassina and Gilardi) in that it has the four playing card suit cutouts (and the FC panto on the head lug).

Here is a bit from the book Le Bici di Coppi on the 'Pokerissimo' poster and the 1949 track bike:






Here is the text from the above:

Manifesto pubblicitario della Bianchi (1947), che promuove il Pokerissimo, ovvero le quattro prestigiose vittorie di Fausto Coppi nella stagione 1947. Sotto, il nome F. Coppi sul tubo orizzontale del telaio.

Questo telaio è un vero capolavoro, oltre che per la maestria tecnica della lavorazione delle congiunzioni, anche per il valore estetico delle iniziali FC del Campionissimo pantografate-coi quattri assi: cuori, fiori, picche e quadri, che attribuiscono il nome alla bicicletta indicata appunto al "Quattro Assi".
In un manifesto pubblicitario ufficiale della Bianchi i "quattro assi più il jolly" celebrano le seguenti vittorie: l'asso di fiori il tricolore su strada, l'asso di quadri la maglia rosa al Giro d'Italia, l'asso di picche la maglia iridata dell'inseguimento su pista, l'asso di cuori la maglia tricolore dell'inseguimento su pista, e il jolly la maglia biancoceleste della Bianchi.

Dall'alto in senso orario, asso di picche pantografato nella parte inferiore della scatola del movimento centrale (da notare il numer del telaio, 171829, punzonato sulla stessa scatola); l'asso di cuori pantofrafato nella parte alta della scatola del movimento centrale; l'asso di quadri nella parte inferiore della congiunzione di sterzo; l'asso di fiori sulla congiunzione di sella.


And here is a Google manglation translation:

Bianchi advertising poster (1947), which promotes the Pokerissimo, or the four prestigious victories of Fausto Coppi in the 1947 season. Below, the name F. Coppi on the top tube of the frame.

This frame is a true masterpiece, as well as for the technical mastery of the processing of the joints, also for the aesthetic value of the initials FC del Campionissimo pantographed with the four aces: hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds, which give the name to the bicycle indicated as the "Quattro Assi".
In an official Bianchi advertising poster the "four aces plus the joker" celebrate the following victories: the ace of clubs the tricolor on the road, the ace of diamonds the pink jersey at the Giro d'Italia, the ace of spades the the rainbow jersey of the track pursuit, the ace of hearts the tricolor jersey of the track pursuit, and the joker the Biancoceleste jersey of Bianchi.

Clockwise from above, ace of spades pantographed in the lower part of the bottom bracket shell (note the frame number, 171829, stamped on the same shell); the ace of hearts patterned at the top of the bottom bracket shell; the ace of diamonds at the bottom of the steering junction; the ace of clubs on the seat lug.




Beppe Drali continued building frames for decades after that, with Pokerissima being his top model. Interestingly, while the decals (and the head badge) showed all four suits, the only cutouts I've ever seen on Drali's bikes were diamonds and hearts. Not sure why.

MauriceMoss

Just to represent some French bikes, here's what BaCo used to do BITD:

Bianchi84

"The Marshmallow Cereal with toasted Oat Surprises"

JackJohn

Very convincing, I think you nailed it. It definitely seems Italian origin, made of competitive mindset and victory show-off as in card play, and the use of superlatives. For sure Girardengo had already been called the first “Campionissimo” by the Gazzetta director for a few years before 1926, when for the 5th time he won the Milano-Sanremo. At some point the terms “Poker” and “Pokerissimo” appeared, but I can’t say when. Certainly no later than the other “Campionissimo” Coppi’s 5 wins you posted, featuring those marvelous pantographed aces on his frame lugs. Anecdotally, of course after the Girardengo era (maybe in the Bartali-Coppi 40s?) the Milano-Sanremo became the “Classicissima”…!
What else to say… superlative!!!

xiaoman1 

Those are rather unique and a lot of effort going into the head-tube! Thanks for sharing.
Best, Ben