DISRAELI GEARS
During the 1950s there were two big beasts in the Japanese derailleur market. Sanko dominated the market for short cage derailleurs for racing and utility bikes and SunTour were the kings of the long-cage derailleur for dedicated touring bikes.
But then, in 1963, SunTour started to import the highly affordable Huret Svelto into Japan in quantity. At around the same time SunTour launched its own, flat-plate, low-priced derailleur - the SunTour Skitter. Both were modern, parallelogram-based, short-cage models aimed squarely at utility bikes and junior racers. It was a threat that Sanko could not ignore.
And so we have the 1965 Sanko PF. It was highly derivative of the Huret Svelto, but with a number of intelligent tweaks. Most notably it had sensibly placed adjustment screws and inexpensive, but effective, pulley wheels with plain bearings. It also had clean branding and was finished to a high standard. It's a derailleur that is hard not to like.
However, I would, quietly, suspect that Sanko was not really set up to produce large volumes of cheap products (and may have lacked the ruthless corporate culture required to do so). Unfortunately the Sanko PF faded away when Sanko went out of business in the late 1960s.
I believe that this example is a later Sanko PF from 1966, largely because it has a toothed guide pulley. It is surprisingly different from the 1965 version:
Ref. 1432
Browse associated documents.
New Cycling 02/1966 - Sanko ad
New Cycling 02/1966 - Sanko ad
New Cycling 09/1966 - Sanko ad
New Cycling 09/1966 - Sanko ad
New Cycling 04/1967 - Sanko ad
New Cycling 04/1967 - Sanko ad