snipped: "Correct restoration on a shoestring is often an equation that needs more time to complete. And most people are simply to anxious to get a job done. The price of research is often what is not willing to be paid."
i like your elitist attitude. i share it in principle. but not everyone cares as much as everyone else. for that one guy who's insensitive to the heavy imron on his repainted 71 masi: imperfection is perfection... e-RICHIE chester, ct
******* interesting. I also thought Chuck's Masi Contest list was interesting as an exercise.
Inadequate restorations are a sad commentary of whoever did the job, or whoever commissioned the job. And when such restos are done on legendary frames, it's even sadder. So it goes.
My attitude toward restorations has changed a lot over the years, as is the case with many, I suppose. A bike I ride a fair bit is a tomato-red Masi GC from 1974 or 5, pressed lugs, 800-something serial number if I recall right. It's my beater Masi. Everything is there, but it's pretty rough. And I don't like that tomato-red much. But, it's a lovely bike even so. I set it up with a Nitto Technomic deluxe without guilt..otherwise it's a fairly plausible original, with battered parts to match the battered frame..and from a distance it looks pretty sharp, up close, clearly an old, grizzled soldier. I toy with restoring it in dark metallic blue, a true Masi color, but rarely seen. That was my favorite Masi color, back in the day. But I probably will not repaint it anytime soon, if ever. It's perfectly charming as it is.
I've had arguments with friends about restoring frames. If everything's there, even if rough, better to wax it and ride it, as the Omnipotent Despot orders.. but others feel differently.
Currently I'm building up an italian Masi GC from about 1970 with the rare-ish transition graphics package. Very nice frame. But very rough. Too rough probably. But it will not be repainted. Not by me, anyway. For me, much of the appeal of the frame would disappear in a restoration.
Then, on the other side, are really bad restorations or repaints that can be fixed. The frame's already been stripped of its original mojo..anything I can do to make it look better is a plus. I've done a few frames from that perspective, and the result was reasonably satisfying, as long as the cost stayed under control.
And, of course there are the great frames that are just too far gone to do anything but restore them. I have a spectacular Pogliaghi track frame from the 60s back in house now (s/n 7XXX), fully chromed with translucent green panels and all the correct foil decals of the period. Jim and Ruth at CyclArt did a fantastic job on it. It looks almost too pretty, like a new christmas-tree ornament. But..hey, that's what it would have looked like new. Had the original chrome been just a little better, I would have left it..but too much had peeled away. In the case of *this* frame, I can hope that Sante is somewhere nodding approval. God knows, it looks really trick.
Same with a Masi Special Brian Baylis lovingly restored recently, preserving all the original graphics in the process, and matching the lovely pearl green color perfectly. Restoring a frame while preserving original graphics may be the best of all possible solutions, when it can be done.. and Brian is a master at it. One of the only people who will even bother.
What I'm gonna do with the gently-rusted-all-over Gloria frame I have here is a mystery, but we'll think of something.
Nowadays my ideal is clean, original. Period. Unless I can get a real good deal on a very cool frame that needs a restoration, I won't bite. Too much money for not enough financial or emotional return. Original is best. Always. Except when there's no choice in the matter.
Charles Andrews SoCal
Concerning Carlos Kleiber one of the greatest of all post-war conductors:
The glamour often associated with a conductor's life held no appeal for him; he preferred to stay at home in Munich. He once told Leonard Bernstein: "I want to grow in a garden. I want to have the sun. I want to eat and drink and sleep and make love and that's it."