And about Faggin, I mean the great Leandro Faggin, I was told he used to visit Antonio Taverna's shop, where, by the way, you can admire some photographs of Leandro in action. I must ask Antonio who built those Faggin frames ... .
Sergio Pisa Italia
On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Decruyenaere, Joseph wrote:
> Jim's description of those Masis reminds me of a Faggin frame and fork I
> bought recently. It's well constructed, but the paint is thin and
> spattery and the lack of clear coat has encouraged the fraying of some
> of the nekkid decals. Plus, a couple of the decals suffer from the same
> syndrome that you sometimes see in badly printed funny pages, where the
> different color layers don't overlay properly. It's a bit of shame too,
> because the frame has some nice details -- lots of engraving and chromed
> fork, stays and dropout faces -- you'd think the paint should have got
> the same kind of attention.
>
> Joe Decruyenaere
> South Pasadena, California
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org
> [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Jim Allen
> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 7:02 AM
> To: BobHoveyGa@aol.com
> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR]Masi...Legend or Marketing Genius
>
> BobHoveyGa@aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Sergio;
> >
> >It is good to hear that Billato builds nice frames. But I must wonder
> if
> >the ones that the connoisseurs value so much in Italy are of the same
> quality
> >as those sent to the USA to become Masi's lowest and next-to-lowest
> models.
> >The first group or two that were sent over here were so bad that they
> could
> >not be sold as Masis... I believe they had to be disposed of at a loss
>
> >somewhere (probably Ted Kirkbride or Jim Allen could tell you more
> about this).
> >After the problems with the initial batch(es) were ironed out, the
> Billato-built
> >Nuova Strada and Gran Corsa became known as serviceable and reasonably
> priced
> >frames, but I don't believe they were ever prized for their beauty or
> >collectability. I like my Gran Corsa's ride qualities a great deal
> but I would be
> >very surprised if any part of that frame had ever seen a file.
> >
> >
> >
> Bob,
>
> I don't know for certain that the initial shipment was built by Billato.
>
> I do remember that they were spec'ed not be Ted, but by Randy @ High
> Country Imports, the then distributor for Masi.
>
> They were not poorly made, but the paint and decals just weren't up to
> snuff - vinyl top mounted stuff. I still have a box of them somewhere!
>
> We stripped the decals off the frames and resold them to Euro Asia. As I
>
> recall, the only engraving were the letter "M" engraved on the brake
> bridge and the fork crowns. They were constructed of Columbus Aelle R.
> The telltale on these frames was the double taper seat stays and the
> internal fork crown.
>
> We later saw or heard occasional reports of some of these frames being
> repainted elsewhere and sold as Gran Criteriums.
>
> Jim Allen
> the CycleSmiths
> Ranchita, CA