Thats a very reasonable and understandable comment.

Though I highly recommend reading up on Mario Confente. Maybe better to say -must read.

I hate it when I say that I don't anything about "x" and then your buddies say "that's a very reasonable and understandable comment,"

At least he didn't say (with a Southern drawl) "bless his heart."

Ha Miguel^

------

Slight derail here but yet on topic. A few years back was in the bike cave of a fellow C&V forum member. Spotted hanging among his fine selection of bikes and frames was a Confente... well, he quickly told me was a faux. I take his word for it, but surely would've liked to spend more time examining. Nor bothered to check a number but not all US made are accounted for. Then there's the earlier ones he made (or worked in conjunction) for friends and teammates while residing in Verona, Italy. Who know's how many or whats out there?

----
Other: Pretty good payday for this seller. Made for fine watchmaker George Daniels. Sold at a Bonhams auction in 2012 for $4,300 usd incl. buyer premium. Then with a few changes sold on .

If one could afford the 20k, why not just shell out a little more and have a museum conservator do it? Not something I would ordinarily consider, but in this case it might make sense.

Skrivan made a replica, read that Gangl did too. The Skrivan bike is marked on the bottom bracket very plainly, in silver.
Mike Kone wrote of some fakes, way back but that was about all the info I found.
Jim Cunningham at one time stated he had the build cards and would provide an owner a copy, last I knew, that is under reconsideration, an owner would only get it if he had Cyclart do the restoration. Times change.

From what I read on the CR list, @Citoyen du Monde has the inside story on this particular machine, as he facilitated the sale of it to the recently departed owner.

Maybe he can chime in and fill us all in.

For those that hadn't heard of Mario Confente, or his sad demise way to young.

Some background on Mario Confente:
Pacific Coast Cycles: Some rememberances of an old friend, Mario Confente



Here you go, from Classic Rendezvous' Medici section, of American bikes. Warning long and convoluted, drama and gnashing of teeth involved. Jim Cunningham and Brian Bayliss stand off through emails:
The Nedici and Confente story (argument?) [Misspelling of Medici theirs']

Honestly, I don't know that his frames are really the best. I've seen some other builders of the same era put out some far more impressive stuff. This one is not an overly complicated build. I would not be paying $20k, no matter the rarity. I'd much rather have an early Ugo De Rosa build personally.

I don't think it's about what is the "best". Best is a subjective determination. Who is/was, the "best" guitar player?
Ask ten people and you'll get 8 or ten different answers.

Yeah I guess this one really is about rarity and history. Still, a bike with no race history to me is just not worth that kind of coin.

Would I buy it? Probably not...

Is it worth it? Who knows...might be to someone. File under don't really care, not my business.

Is it cool to look at a Confente #1? Darn skippy...knowing the history of the builder and how excited others get about it, it's definitely worth following.

I guess it has a lot to do with the Confente mythology. And that he died so young.
I don't claim to understand any of that. But his history and story is an interesting one for sure.

CDM has some interesting things to add here...basically that some of the allure was simply effective promotion from some Confente owners. It's more involved than that, but essentially you have a skilled builder who brought some Italian practices that weren't previously known here to the US custom community.

Right guy, right place, right time, and it doesn't really matter. There aren't many of them, lots of people want one.

There aren't many other bikes that would get as many opinions, or looks as a Confente.

As I own a few, my take:

The road bikes ride basically like a Carlsbad Masi. No real surprise. But Mario's view of what a Masi should be which differed especially beyond the middle three sizes from what Faliero mapped out. When Mario departed the Carlsbad works they realized eventually that the jig frames were not what had been copied. Not good to have the basic intellectual property in one employee's head.

So, a Carlsbad Masi is a budget Confente. Essentially.

There are far fewer track bikes of course. For me, I found it predictable, stable, you did not think about the bike. Many other bikes I have tried felt "wrong" in the final turn. Not that he had a monopoly on that, but often fashion went well ahead of function for guys at the velodrome.

In terms of collectibility it doesn't get much better than this. Italian, tragedy/drama, a tie to the U.S., quality and #1 serial. To me that's a wow!

I'm not fond of the color and smaller size but price is what it is and I wouldn't doubt there is some room. I look at this way, one can pay 10-15g for a new top end DeRosa or Pinarello.... but I know which one I would rather have.

I apologize if that came out too direct but was meant as an overall opinion of the name back in the 70's to even today. Read on-

The bike boom was near its end and only a small percentage of cyclist, even avid racers little knew of Confente. Though among the elite of the industry and pro-racers -top echelon, he was certainly sought. Even though he wowed the people attending the NYC bike show in the late 70's, still very few outside of that knew of him or his brand.

And oddly it was also the other way around. Kind of the Italian style in marketing, Confente approached Jimmy Carter to build and present a bike. Carter rejected. He was seeking people of notoriety in America to have a custom bike by him. This would be like when Colnago gifted the Pope with a gold plated bike.

Also, very few and would've been highly unusual for an average Joe cyclist to seek him out and have a custom frame made. Even if they did, more unusual to pay double vs. other highly esteemed custom frame builders.

No doubt the bikes have some technical depth and passion by the maker but think the value is about something else. The brief timespan and few made, the storyline make it as premium among 'collectors'. Those collectors set the market and value. The elusive few Confente's and rarely offered up for sale make for top dollar.

Outside of all the drama from the attempt at Masi USA being successful, and Bill Recht's takeover that went bust, I thought that Masi and to a lesser extent Medici were pretty much Italian in their geometry. Not to place Medici on the same level as Masi or Confente, as I understand it, they were supposed to be the more entry level bikes in Recht's plans. I have no complaints about the handling of mine, but I am not one that tests a bike's performance.

Confente was supposed to be working on some high zoot quality lugs, I couldn't follow some of the convoluted emails about them in the CR exchanges between Baylis and Cunningham. Did these see the light of day, and make it to production? Maybe on the Confente bikes that got made. I never had heard the Jimmy Carter story before, interesting attempt at promotion, wrong president to try and give something to.

Bill

I have a Medici also. I consider them an outgrowth of what Mike Howard recalled from his days at Masi and Wizard. They did evolve though, and from my measure got more Colnago like.

The lugs Mario was planning got drawn up but he did not follow up with the tooling house. he did have a hand with the IC lugs that Masi did. As a result of his absence, the parabolic curves of the Recht funded parts became simpler, easier to execute arcs and radii. The finesse was lost in translation and budget. This was before the proliferation of CAD/CAM software and CNC machinery. If you place an IC lugged Medici along side a Confente, it is pretty easy to see the difference. I am pretty sure Mario would not have accepted the patterns or cast pcs. His bikes all used modified Bocama lugs.
I am unclear if Mario knew of the investment cast lugs before his departure.

The "as cast" wall thickness of the Masi Carlsbad lugs are considerably thinner than the what I would call industry standard currently by Longsheng. I find interesting that Masi USA by the mid 80's sourced lugs and fork crowns through Henry James of a different design. Something happened to that prior source obviously.

I've never ridden a track bike on a track or elsewhere. Never ridden a road bike in competition either. But your observation rings true for my Masi GC in that in a turn it never seems to need correction. I just think where I want to go and the bike goes there by itself. It isn't especially quick to turn, like the Grandis for example. I would even describe it as "conventional" for mid-70's (to the extent of my experience). But it turns with effortless precision. My Banchi can feel like a part of me, the Motobecane, Gazelle, and especially the Grandis, are always eager to go, turn, stop, whatever. But the Masi not only revels in all those things, it anticipates my thoughts then just executes.

I don't know whether that's a feature of the geometry, or maybe just the way it fits me which I happened to get right by chance because the frame is nominally smaller in some dimensions (e.g. shorter TT so longer stem reach) than my other bikes.

So I'm just curious whether you would extend your "you did not think about the bike" comment to the road bikes, or if it was just the track bikes.

I'm still learnin'.

I won't pretend to know anything about this level of bike. But, something about this just looks so.... right.



Just beautiful

The last Confente sale I am aware of (a few weeks ago?) went for $12,500. It was a fairly large blue road bike (may be the one in Rootboy's picture), sold by The Pro's Closet. This bike is not that much more and it is much more unique and rare.

Different bike, the Pro's Closet bike did not have eyelets. That bike with eyelets may be a one-off for that option.

Mike Kone was alluding in an email blast to that Pro's Closet bike before the auction but I guess he did not get the nod, at least pretty sure as the size and comments about it aligned.

I did watch that recent auction and it ended without bids, so the sale must have transpired after the listing. It is off the ebay search completed or expired database when I just looked.

I'm not the expert, but Confente was sent by Masi to start Masi USA in Carlsbad, CA, and some of the most notable American frame builders worked there. He was well liked and died suddenly when he was still pretty young, so I guess he's the James Dean of frame builders. And of course, his bikes are considered to be the perfect marriage of beauty and performance.

The one depicted by Rootboy (blue) was from the ebay link above. If you follow that link, it tells the provenance. Commissioned by watchmaker George Daniels, met Confente in Palm Springs, CA, a later thank you letter to Confente -dated 1977, number 58, plus bb stamped 595 (perhaps for size 59.5?), unusual with eyelets and chainstay bridge drilled for mudguards. Curious if this one was designed more as a relaxed sport rider. Bike originally resided in the UK.