OLD ADS REVEAL SOME INTERESTING POINTS
You might remember I wrote a post a while back where I tried to get to the bottom of a problem with the various old steel Viner frames that come up for sale on ebay.
Thankfully by getting in touch with Viner in Pistoia, I managed to understand the difference in the various cut out details in the lugwork on these 1970s and 80s frames.
Recently Guido over at italiaanseracefietsen has unearthed these 1981 US Viner adverts, and he’s kindly let me publish them. What a find! They finally explain the other ‘cut out’ detail I’ve seen on some ebay frames. As well as the ‘stars’ and ‘crosses’ I’ve also seen old Viner frames with a simpler, almost heart shaped cut out. These were the frames that were deemed ‘fakes’ on some internet forums. Well these ads have confirmed that these frames are indeed original Viners – the Record racing frameset (see below). A cut price frame that kept the angles and clearances of the Special Professional, but used cheaper Falck tubing for the rear triangle and plainer paint finishes.
The ads have also thrown up some other interesting details, such as the strange half circular attachment on the right hand rear drop out on the above Special Professional. Is this for extra strength? These Special Professional’s were intended to be raced on, perhaps these were bolted on to stop the rear drop out bending when a crash happened?
More importantly for anyone intending to buy an old steel framed Viner from this era, all Viners have the seat tube length stamped onto the left underside of the bottom bracket shell, with the Special Professionals also having the top tube length stamped on the opposite side on the bottom bracket.
Vineristi 
Hi Rich,
Thanks for mentioning me in your post. I am not the original source for these scans though, as my post at Italiaanse Racefietsen shows at the bottom, the credits go to flickr user oroboyz. They are a nice find though… 😉
steel is still real.
The half circle item on the drive side dropout is the Campagnolo Portacatina (sp?) that in conjunction with a special rear shift lever moved the chain onto the device to supposedly speed rear wheel changes. I have no idea if it accomplished this feit, but I do know they are a bit expensive if you can find them.
Well you learn something new everyday. Thanks for the info Daniel – I’m going to look into this Portacatina system a bit more. I’d never heard of it and I started cycling in the mid 80s so the idea must have died a death!
It’s interesting to see the “star” cut out in the Stella Special bottom bracket shell as Guerciotti also did the same with their bottom bracket shells.
The Guerciotti star had an elongated top point if my memory serves me well. My original Viner Special Professional did not come with a fork that had star cutouts and I almost substituted a Guerciotti fork that did have stars for it, but decided the chrome fork on my bike was OK.