This catalogue is often dated as being from 1982. I think this is not correct. I think it dates from around 1987, as it features the 1986 World Championship victories of Mario Gentili, the Czechoslovakian amateur men's Team Pursuit team, Tony Doyle and the Czechoslovakian amateur men's Tandem pair.
It shows 4 groupsets, in declining order of quaity and prestige:
- Cronospecial
- Cronospecial Pista - for the track
- Cronosprint
- Sprint
These names are more similar to those in the 1984 catalogue, than the groupset names in the 1988 catalogue. One could surmise from this that this catalogue was issued between 1984 and 1988. As it shows images from the 1986 World Championships I have guessed its date as 1987.
It shows two derailleurs:
- Gipiemme Exploit (801AE), this may also be called Gipiemme Cronospecial (801AE). The word 'Exploit' is machined into its outer parallelogram plate - so this is the name I usually use. I think that this derailleur was manufactured by Campagnolo. There are a number of different variants of the Gipiemme Exploit. The variant shown in this catalogue has no cable adjuster and has a normal outer pulley cage plate with a cutout at the guide pulley. I have never seen a version of this derailleur (without the cable adjuster) in the flesh - so I think that this catalogue shows a prototype, and that the production versions had a cable adjuster.
- Gipiemme Cronosprint (800CC) - this is a Gipiemme branded, and highly polished, version of the Campagnolo 990. I have also never seen this model in the flesh, and I do not know if it ever made it into production. If you have seen one, please let me know.
Many thanks to Fernando in Argentina for alerting me to the page on the Gipiemme web site that provides these fascinating scans!
