The famous article in the May 1981 edition of New Cycling lists an Italian brand called 'Marca Stella', which possibly translates as 'Star Brand'. New Cycling shows an interesting, single pulley, parallelogram derailleur, which I have, finally, managed to track down. It features a star shaped logo with the letters 'MRF' in a circle in the centre.

This star logo with these letters features on another, much commoner product - Raggi Stella spokes. 'Raggi' is Italian for spokes. Raggi Stella appears to have been a brand marketed by Luigi Vigevano SpA, Via Carlo Porta 1, Milano.

Raggi Stella spokes were considered high-end, offering stainless spokes as early as the 1940s. Numbers of Tour de France and Giro riders seemed to have used them, and they seem to have been the spoke of choice for many Italian racing bicycle brands. I was vaguely aware of them still being available in the late 1970s. At that time their butted spokes were rather strange with a very sudden transition from one guage to the other - creating an obvious stress-raiser that I could only think led to premature fatigue failure. I much prefered Union butted spokes, which were glamorously chrome plated (not always a wise thing) and appeared to be much more sensibly designed and precisely made. Later on, of course, I became addicted to DT spokes - precise, stainless, shiny - they have it all.