At 12:31 PM 9/20/06 -0400, Tom Sanders wrote:
>I am sure that the seller I bought my mis- labeled bike
>from really thought it was a Matthews (quite a rare bike built by Matt
>Assenmacher at the start of his career) and had no idea what an Atala might
>have looked like.
Often people would find nice looking frames that have been repainted with
no markings or sold that way in the first place because the builder had
surplus inventory originally built for a well-known brand. In order to add
pedigree, they would repaint the frame and add decals after an educated (or
not) guess as to what the brand might be. I've had friends who picked up
really nice frames at a bargain price because there was no famous name on
the downtube, but had been told it was in fact a "so-and-so". Some might
recognize the lugs and bits and know it's a good frame, but the majority
would only by the name. Someone from Montreal posted on Bike Forums about a
"Marinoni" for sale asking if it was the real deal.
http://www.bikeforums.net/
John Betmanis
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada