The rear derailleur is the rarer Italian made Campione Del Mondo (lever) or Champion Du Monde version of the French made
Simplex Champion de France. Simplex had a number of manufacturing plants outside of France, and this is one example. The set was purchased from Italian seller.
It is a single pulley and pre-dates the two pulley Simplex Tour de France.
Details are set out in the
1937 catalogue to be found at the V-CC library.
A more comprehensive account of the development of early Simplex derailleurs can be found in Raymond Henry's 'Fifty Years of Development of Simplex Derailleurs' presented at the 6th International Cycle History Conference
(
the Proceedings are also in the V-CC library)
The two pulley TDF would not be period correct for 1946.
The front changer is even rarer. The early Simplex rod changers are the Tour de France which preceded the more commonly found Competition rod changer. see the Classic Lightweights page on
Simplex and the page on
Rod front changers.
Whist there are many similarities with the Tour de France model, they have a closed cage, where this one is open.
The cage is original
Simplex FD 2 by
philip.knight, on Flickr
and it does not appear in the very comprehensive
Simplex Derailleurs of the World. I have had someone search through without success.
The closest I have found is the Simplex Randonneur (
see Velobase) but it does not have the cutouts on the cage.
So it is a rare and very early example, and would appear to be of the period. I bought that from France.
Most suitable for a 'rich kid'.
The Chater Lea round arm cranks were released in March 1948, so a little too new for a period correct build.
Parts for a 1946 build are very hard to source. (
see p11 'Continental accessories' of Cycling 30/10/46) There had been little opportunity to design new parts, so most designs were from before the war. Shortages were extreme. The devastation to manufacturing was immense; and cycling component manufacture was not spared.
A summary of the British cycling can be found in the 25/12/46 edition of Cycling starting at p534
In addition, there was a deep suspicion of 'continental' practices such as massed start racing and gears. See the article at page 344 of
Cycling (23 Oct 1946).
Derailler gears generated unwanted friction (
p10 of Cycling 30/10/46)