Ray wrote:
"ultimately the beauty/value of the object is in the eye of the beholder/bidder, but personally this beholder/non-bidder, believes that $1500 to $1600 is below the fair market value of this particular masi. i will be glad to receive off-list opinions on this, tabulate the results and post them, so feel free to flame me or attaboy me, offlist.
ray dobbins, miami, florida "
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I want to be very clear here. I was not making some kind of senseless argument about someone else's taste, or pocketbook. Or their perception of good, bad, or indifferent. I was making a point about market value.
The Masi frames made after the company left Carlsbad are perfectly nice, very tidy (I've owned a couple. None currently. They're not my thing)... but many of those (me included) who are willing to pay significant amounts of money for American-made Masis generally reserve that money for the Carlsbad frames.
For lots of reasons (reasons which have been discussed extensively on this list..I'm happy to give my reasons to anyone who wants to know them, off-list) the Carlsbad Masis are by far the most charming of all the American-made Masis. And note well: they aren't easy to find.. my understanding of the general consensus is that something like 1200 Carlsbad frames were made, in all sizes (and some of those were IC-lugged frames), and that was it. So, in addition to the charm of those earlier frames, you have genuine rarity. Not to mention the rarity of the Italian-made GCs, of which there are not all that many around either.
Later frames consistently sell for less than the early Carlsbad frames (the auction under discussion excepted), unless the buyer doesn't really understand what they're getting... I could easily see a relatively uninformed buyer paying a Carlsbad--or italian--price for a later frame, under the impression they were getting the "rare" Masi. Even a casual look at prices paid for Masis on ebay over the last few years shows that the later frames do not sell for much more than 600 bucks. With exceptions, sure, I'm speaking generally.
But, even at that, if you assign an artificially high price to the frame in the auction involved, say, $1000, and you give the group another artificially high price, say $1500 (installed/used 50th groups sell for a grand, give-or-take a couple hundred bucks), you still have a price way under the final auction price of that bike.
I have owned several Carlsbad Masis, most totally original, with all the parts from the factory, and a couple of 70s italian GCs. In mint condition too. I've sold each of them for under 2K. Always to friends who were knowledgeable collectors. I, and they, would never pay that much for the bike on ebay. The going rate for a clean carlsbad Masi GC with original parts is probably 1600-1800 bucks, depending. The price is probably rising too, because of rarity, and consistent demand. But there's no way an 80s Masi GC with a 50th group is worth more than one of these..at least, not to the collectors I know, and not to me.
That's just us. Anyone has the right to pay a lot of money for anything they want. My point was, if the buyer really paid that much for it, he's gonna be disappointed if he ever tries to sell it.
A special example of an 80s GC would be an exception: a show-bike; a bike with special trick parts (like lots of chrome), a frame with special features not seen on factory GCs...these would sell for much more. Sky is the limit for stuff like that, but that's not what we have in the bike on ebay.
Assign a realistic value of 600 bucks to the frame, and, say, 900 bucks to the group, and $1500 for that bike is suddenly not especially low.
Also note that lack of other bidders in that auction. I still think there was something funny about the whole thing.
Sorry for the length of this post. Collecting Masis is a tricky business, and I've spent WAY more than I should have, and lost a good bit of money too, educating myself about the various flavors of Masis, and their market value. As a result, I hate to see anyone pay more than they should for one of these things.
Charles Andrews
SoCal