The Bicycle Headtube Badge Uncovered
At a brocante market in Carpentras France was a glass case of curious emblems and odd WWI bits. Among the jumble were dozens of old French bicycle badges….in cloisonne, brass, tin and cast metal. A few with the stamped-in name of the bicycle owner. It was my unofficial start to scouting for the elusive, forgotten and quirky bicycle headtube badge. Seems almost every town in France and Italy had a local cycle maker in the early 1900’s.
Photographer and lighting guru Nick Nacca stops by Miriello Officina periodically, a fellow bike rider. “I’d like to see what I can do with your head-tube collection. Let me tak’em for a while.” Over the next weeks, I started getting the odd email with a gorgeous emblem photo, enlarged and bathed in “Nacca-light.” They were no longer the forgotten flea-market finds only a cyclist or designer could love. Nick had transformed the head-tube collection into what they were always intended to be, little pieces of industrial art and typography, crafted to mark another age. naccaphoto.com
