Originally Posted by Wogsterca

I have a difficulty with this concept that if a bicycle looks like crap because it's old, that it should forever look that way. When you find a '35 Packard in a barn and aim to restore it, you tear it apart, you clean off the rust, repair or replace any body panels or frame members that need replacing, then give it a good coat of primer and paint it, and your likely as not to put in new upholstery. The idea being to make your '35 Packard look like it did when new. Given this same logic, the way to treat a 1961 Masi with a beat up paint job, is to carefully photograph it, with measuring devices in place, then get or make up new decals, and while waiting for those, strip the frame to bare metal, get all the rust off, repair any dings and other damage, and that may include rebrazing some of the joints and replacing any braze ons that are damaged, then prime it and paint it, the same colours as it was originally. Mind you a proper restoration job on a 1961 Masi would need to be done by a specialty bicycle painting shop, like Cyclart. Where you pull all the parts off, then send the frame to them for stripping and painting, then while waiting for the frame to come back, spend some quality time with the parts, to make them look as good as possible. If the bike is properly restored then there is no real difference between riding a 5 year old bike and a 50 year old bike.