Originally Posted by
zazenzach
This is a lower end bike. Ishiwata Magny tubing was only one step up from hi-ten (probably even weighed the same).
Get it riding, dont put one penny more into it. You can get a real nice bike for $500 off craigslist.
That statement is uninformed and I am being charitable here. Magny-X tubing was Ishiwata's seamed strip manganese-molybdenum tubing, similar to mid-level offerings from Reynolds (like 501), True Temper, and Tange. That bike is double-butted through-out, fork, tubes, and stays. It has forged dropouts with dropout adjusters on the rear. It is hardly a low end bike. This is an '80s era Japanese Bianchi and they are pretty nice bikes, certainly on par with mid-level offerings from Trek, Schwinn, and any of the Japanese manufacturers from that era.
Magny-X tubing is mentioned here in part 2 of the lowdown on tubing:
The Lowdown on Bicycle Tubing
Sheldon Brown mentions Japanese Bianchis here:
Japanese Bicycles in the U.S. Market