I am so very glad as well that I was there to save it. I had sort of heard about MAX tubing before at some point, maybe, but seeing the MAX label on this one, I thought, you don't see that around very often at all. I look at the bikes that have that tubing (even MXL Merckx critters), and the prices of their frames, to say nothing of the rarity of the tubing, and the saving of this frame becomes that much more profound. It's not "just" a Marinoni, it's a MAX Marinoni.

As far as the origin of the dent, it appears that a metal object with an edge (roughly 90° or sharper) either fell on it or the Marinoni fell on the metal object. Past that, who knows. A big bummer either way, but given that the damage is only cosmetic, I am overjoyed that it came my way. I'm running 180mm cranks on it (I'm 6'5") as I had them lying around, and man can we lay down some power between those and the beefy frame.