Re: [CR]ebay outing: pogliaghi

(Example: Production Builders:Pogliaghi)

To: chasds@mindspring.com
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 19:14:55 -0500
Subject: Re: [CR]ebay outing: pogliaghi
From: "Richard M Sachs" <richardsachs@juno.com>
cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org

snipped from below: "I find the explicit association between the ebay bike and Pogliaghi's glory days to be disengenous at best.. typical ebay blather, in other words. <cut> My thought, with regard to Pogliaghi specifically, is this: at what point did a Pogliaghi cease being a Pogliaghi?"

chas - you can sub any CRish name here; masi, cinelli, hechins, pogliaghi, sumgai. my conclusion to this issue is this: there is a finite amount of "real" stuff around and a TON of stuff that was made after the 70s bike boom - the point at which most CRish makers started to expand into licensing, price point frames, and the like. for most people who don't know "better" or don't care about the differences frames such as this ebay pog or even the masi from 10 days ago are the closest theyre going to get to the "real" thing. i know - this is terribly opinionated, but since saturday pm is normally a slow list night i think nobody will read this anyway. e-RICHIE®™© Richard Sachs Cycles No.9, North Main Street Chester, CT 06412 USA Tel. 860.526.2059 site: http://www.richardsachs.com pics: http://photos.yahoo.com/bobbesrs rants: http://richardsachs.blogspot.com/

*************** On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 16:29:04 -0800 "C. Andrews" <chasds@mindspring.com> writes: http://ebay.com/<blah> y=7298

The description of this auction started an interesting train of thought, already dealt with to some degree on this list, but maybe not with regard to this specific marque.

The seller is clearly trying to cash in on the fame of Sante Pogliaghi's frames made in the 1960s and 1970s, while this frame--on the surface anyway--is so obviously a product of the Basso or Rossin company. Made long after Sante had either sold his name, or died, or both. I find the explicit association between the ebay bike and Pogliaghi's glory days to be disengenous at best.. typical ebay blather, in other words.

But I didn't post this to slam the seller. He has to look himself in the mirror every day, and if he's here on the list I'm happy to engage with him or her off-list.

My thought, with regard to Pogliaghi specifically, is this: at what point did a Pogliaghi cease being a Pogliaghi? The reason this seems relevant (aside from the sterling qualities, both collectible and practical, of prime Pogis), is because, to my eye, some of the frames made by Rossin and marked Pogliaghi in the early-to-mid 1980s seem to retain the geometry, and, thus, I'd assume, the riding characteristics of a Pogi made by the man himself. So, to that degree, the Rossin Pogliaghis could be thought of as genuine, in a sense, anyway. The elaborate pantographing of parts, and the, how shall I say? Vivid paint and chrome on those bikes notwithstanding, maybe they still had *some* legitimate relationship to Sante and his philosophy of the bike...and so, are valuable for that reason alone.

Mr. Sachs has commented on this problem more than once I know, and if it's been addressed sufficiently we could ignore the whole question, and just say, when Pogliaghi retired, that was it, the end of the line. Or maybe the end of the line occured when the bikes ceased to be stamped PSM on the seat-cluster..I've been told that the PSM stamp was retained until the Pogliaghi shop was closed and all manufacturing was taken over by Rossin. I have no idea if that's true, though. I'd buy that as the end, if true.

I guess it bugged me to see someone exploiting Pogliaghi's reputation in service of a bike that had no relationship to him whatever--unless of course Basso continued to use Pogliaghi's designs...which seems unlikely to me.

Charles "Pogliaghi acolyte" Andrews SoCal