Oh, the humanity!!! He drewed that classic lego figurine!

I always wanted to repaint an average frame and make put a badge with "Ren and Stimpy" on it.

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.

I would agree wholeheartedly assuming that, like the Packard, the upholstery is all ripped up and the floorboard is rusted thru under the accelerator. However, if the bike is in decent shape, I find old objects to have an intrinsic value missing from a restoration, even a professionally done one. I would much prefer to have an unrestored and mildly banged up old bike then a trashed bike repainted. In fact, I wouldn't want a restored bike at all, but that's just me.

That said, my definition of what looks like crap is probably a whole lot more conservative than yours. It takes a whole lot of scratches before I'd call an old bike toast.

This is the part I don't accept. But then, this is a very long running debate with strongly held opinions on several sides.

I agree sciencemonster. But the fact is (and I think most will agree with this) that an original paint job -even in marginal/poor condition will often be more valuable to a collector than one that has been re-painted regardless of how professionally it was done. It's not original any more. As the number of collectible specimens gets smaller and smaller (and approaches one ) the value of that un-molested original gets higher and higher. The repainted example takes itself out of that number.

It all depends on supply and demand. And that is different for any manufactured product depending on how many of them were made, how long ago, how likely they were to survive in original un-molested condition, how "special" or significant it was, and what the latest fad is in collecting. Both the supply and demand variables depend on many factors.

I see what you guys did, here. Nyuk, nyuk....

There are only 3 '61 Masi Specials in Bob Hovey's database. All 3 are repaints.

Here is where it gets interesting, take my mountain bike, it was build in 2004, making it 7 this year, if I take that bike and strip it and repaint it, the same livery, simply because it looks like crap after a few unplanned dismounts and other times where gravity and asphalt have not been kind to it. Do you honestly think that in 2054 anybody would know, whether I painted it or not? I often wonder how people can refuse to paint a bike, to save the original paint, without knowing if it is even the original factory paint on it. As I have said more then once, if your repainting a bicycle, try to stick with the same colour and scheme.

Whenever I consider a more expensive bike, I ask details such as this. If it has been repainted, I would lose a lot of interest and value. What was the purpose of the repaint?

Sure, you could lie to the person and possibly even pull it off, but that is a ****ty thing to do. (Not implying that you do this.) People value the bike being original. You may not agree with it, but that doesn't change opinions or values.

Well this one has gone around the block.... my 2¢ make it nice, make it custom, put your personal signature on it that shows your skill, it will stand on it's own merits. Don't make it an attempt at an inferior copy of something it's not.

Putting a MASI decal set on a generic plugger is like putting a racing stripe on an old car - It really will make it go faster...

The truth is that when you pay attention to your bike, even if its just washing off the dirt or throwing some neats foot on the seat your bike will in FACT reward you with a better ride... Brava... Bicicleta...

Another thing - My last two vintage builds had so many "NON-ORIGINAL" parts on them I just Gimped my own decal together with all the logos of the parts used... See the link to a previous post...

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...cal?highlight=

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...88b2a7ff17.jpg

Would you buy a used MASI from this man? :lol:

-Kurt

Masi transfers on a Schwinn World Sport is equal to placing Ferrari badges on a Fiero, even with a 308 panel kit. Bad taste, poor taste, no taste.
I get a wee bit more conflicted with the "replica" tribute frames by Brian Baylis of Masi and Colnago, where they look the same 'cept the handmade by Baylis engraving on the fork crowns. The other replica that comes to mind would be the Roberson made replica of a early 60's ish Masi Special, visually identical to the original save the perfect finish and different bottom bracket stampings to identify it. It was documented on the Speedplay site for a while, I have not looked for it in a while.

The Speedplay Masi Special replica project came from the refusal of Joe Bell to Repaint it.

http://www.speedplay.com/speedplayla...asi_large.html

I already provided a link to that bike in this thread.

A third that comes to mind is the guy who commissioned his own replica Cinelli...

http://cinellionly.blogspot.com/2010...inelli-sc.html

Looked for Saba decals for four years, couldn't source them. I wanted to refinish this bike - paint was in a sorry, sorry state. After removing every pantographed/engraved 'Saba' signature with a Dremel I re-badged it using my own made-up moniker, based upon the Alpine Cycles font.

The result:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1249/...1c546881_b.jpg

Since this was now "my" bike, I took the theme to extremes - again using the Dremel - with the complete drillium treatment.

My 2 cents...

DD

As nice as they come!

Well done.

What an incredible cat by the way.

Thanks, Grady. She's definitely a one-of-a-kind cat!

One thing I have to ask: if Italian paint/chrome jobs are supposedly so crappy, why place such a value in keeping the paint original?

(Uh-oh, now I'm in trouble...) :)

DD

I guess it adds to the rarity of the mint frame. Who cares though, Italian bikes are overrated. :innocent:

Holy smokes I just got home from work and this thread blew up! This wasn't to try to pull the wool over someone's else to pass it off but more so something I could ride and not feel bad about if it got stolen, damaged etc... As for the using your own name. I actually had some decals made up with my last name on my carbon ebay road frame build and could actually do that since I have three more sets of decals. I was doing a repaint anyways since I was planning on brazing on some dt shift bosses and cable guides since it originally has stem mounted shifters.
I thought about picking up a Speciale Commuter but then what different is that Taiwan branded Masi to my Schwinnasonic? There's nothing special about newer Masi's in my opinion for what their worth. I'd never try to pass it off as a real deal and specify it's a replica on the frame somewhere. The frame/fork is the only original thing as everything else is Italian...Record low flange wheelset, headset, calipers, Cinelli stem/bars etc... Well everyone is allowed their own opinion and I got what I asked be it positive or negative.

I think the spirit in which it's done counts for a great deal.

That said, I'm in the "do something a little different" camp.

How about a Schwinn Speciale?

I have a peer in our MTB community that converts, repaints and re-badges old MTB's with his neat looking single speed decal and sells them as he can to finance his own mountain bike needs but we all know him and the history of the bikes he does. And his cool badging... As has been well said; You are free to do what you want (obviously) but since you asked us: I would feel like a real tool if I rode around on a bike I tried to make look like a model it is not with paint and badging to replicate the other model. Lame! But that's me.