Jesper,
As written on my forum yesterday, serendipitously, I had to find that Juvela was posting some of my pictures on the bikeforum outside of my knowledge
@juvela : this cannot be. Can you acknowledge that you understand that we require asking and inclusion of the source and author of a document and that you agree to act accordingly ? I have not read this...
My main objective here is to help you, Jesper.
The VITA chain was produced by a belgian brand called CPM, from the initial of their owners, Mr P&M Charbonnier.
It is not well known but in Belgium, we have had a very large cycling industry, mainly derived from the guns manufacturers and the related companies.
CPM commercialized (I cannot testify that they produced some or all of the followings) the VITA products, including chains, derailleurs, lamps and dynamos; they also sold the Hermesse cranks & chainring (for these I can testify that they were made in Liege by the Hermesse brothers); Duraleau rims and Selecta saddles and brakes.
They also sold brakes called Ebonite Supra and I cannot imagine them made out of ebonite.
I've find evidences of this dating of end of 30ties to the early fifties.
However, the date of a chain is irrelevent since this is likely one of the first items to be replaced.
Concerning the "speciale" gears, until checking the back side, I would not conclude on a too well known name.
It could be many other things and the mentionned removal patern was actualy standard at that time and I've many blocks like these, even some very late ones from asian origin
Concerning the "solida" chainring, again, worned out parts are being replaced with what was localy available.
Here a link
https://forum.tontonvelo.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=9644 to read.
You will read that although the first poster identifies the crank as Solida (to me poopty products but maybe not at the time), he doesn't state the chainring. A later poster (Mr Dejoulardi, who usualy knows what he is talking about) list it as a Mercier chainring. Later again, Gibeu, also used to know what he says, speaks of his Andrelys bike and a last one, David, of a Nervar crank ...
Out of this I would not drive any conclusion but my personnal feeling is that this is too ornated to be have been targeted for a racing bike.
Sorry to have disturbed the Cabe ...
A last thing.
The pedals treads.
These pedals came either with french threads or BSA ones. And many cranks accordingly
Usualy pedals manufactured with different threads can be identified with the marking
G & D - French threads (gauche et droite)
R & L - BSA
As for the Italian brands with D and S inistra ...
