I'd still like to hear thoughts on how (if possible) to remove such engraving. I have a friend in town who also collects a fair bit of stuff and has offered me things in the past. Unfortunately while he lived in Vancouver BC a while back, he was the victim of a theft or two. After that he too began engraving all his parts with his name and phone #. Really frustrating because to me a 1976 SR rear derailleur would be really a cool thing to have (on the right bike) but I really don't want one with this guy's name and number on it!
I've told him outright that as far as I was concerned I really wasn't interested in any of his 'personalized' or 'signed' parts as he calls them, because they've been wrecked from a collection standpoint IMHO. On the odd part where the writing has been done on a non-anodized surface I could imagine possibly spending time sanding the name out and repolishing the surface, but if the engraving has been done on an anodized surface I think you're out of luck if you want to eliminate the offending marks. Short of disassembling the parts and sanding, polishing and having them re-anodized. :-(
David Bilenkey Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
> -----Original Message-----
> From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org
> [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org]On Behalf Of Donald
> Gillies
> Sent: May 9, 2003 1:32 PM
> To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: [CR]MASI - what to do about engraving ???
>
>
> Your MASI is a truly representative product of its era. If you were
> alive in the 1970's (i was a little kid), you probably recall that the
> 1970's was a decade of rising unemployment, oil shocks, "stagflation",
> police cutbacks, and rising crime . After the 1973 oil shock bicycles
> gained new status as essential modes of transportation.
>
> About the only thing that people could do to protect themselves and
> their critical transportation engrave their possessions with SSI or
> driver's license number. I remember frequent TV commercials for
> "Operation Identification" that urged all citizens to engrave their
> valuables !!!
>
> Hopefully the MASI was engraved with a cheesy dremel tool which was
> also a new innovation at the time. This engraving would not doubt
> authenticate the MASI parts as all totally original in a way that any
> serious collector could appreciate.
>
> The use of a $30 tool to deface every component of an Italian $600
> racing bike is perhaps something that will never happen again in our
> lifetimes. This bike is truly a product of its era. I wish that _MY_
> 1970's bikes had such a profound mark of authenticity !!!
>
> - Don Gillies
> San Diego, CA