miamijim

That's the best I can do for pics right now. It has a Portacatana dropout...

Comments/thoughts?

Bikes and Jeeps

I don't have anything constructive to add, except once again you post a picture of a bike I know little/nothing about.
I spend 20 minutes on Google, and now I wont be happy until I get one.

BlueDevil63 

Yep, that's what it looks like to me. Fork crown looks right for an 80s GC.

bconneraz

hard to say. the fork crown looks right; I love the way they taped off the crown straight on the blades to paint it; poor bike. it appears to be missing a top tube cable guide; or the pic is bad. there should be three, and I only see two. The bottom bracket will tell the story; cant wait to hear it. Could be a Prestige too. My 80 has a different fork crown; that one looks like my 86 GC, but your frame has different seat stay caps. Keep us posted.

repechage

Not an early 80's. They used a Cinelli model MC crown. Often called the semi-sloping crown which I never thought was a good descriptor for it. This has the later Henry James sourced lugs and crown these show up in 1983. Serial number on the bottom bracket will tell all. The lack of the cast seat stay caps pushes it earlier than the bulk of the Henry James fittings constructed bikes.

repechage

Not a chance it is a Prestige. Good call on the seat stay caps though. The milled looking parts were plugs, enhanced styling and easier to make.

Road Fan

Not all used sloped crowns - mine does not, and it is late 1980. Mine also does not have engraving. As far as other signs, on my screen I can only see the scalloped seat stay tops and the fork crown. The head lugs do not have the thickened area around the top and bottom faces. Can't see much else - need better photos in better light, details of all lugs, and a good drive-side elevation, taken at seat-tube height. Details of the fork crown, under-BB, and fork crown tang area. Need also to see the fork blade shape well. It begins to look like Masi, but it's hard to tell in these photos, due to the downward-looking camera location.

If its a GC, the bottom of the BB should have something like "M58" or perhaps "MC58," to indicate 58 cm. This 58 cm should correspond to the seat tube length from BB center to the tip-top of the seat lug. If it's a Masi 58 then the c-c size is about 56.

Jim, are you buying it?

BlueDevil63 

Well the fork crown is the same as the two '84 Masi GCs I have owned. The OP picture is not great but certainly looks like this. I guess I considered '84 as still early 80s.

miamijim

Here're some more pics, I was having an overly difficult time uploading pics last night. I was thinking early 80's due to the Henry James fork crown as suggested, I know Portacatena dropouts didn't go to far into the 80's.

miamijim

There's only 2


The subtle details!!!

I should have the BB info later today, I'll post up the info. And Yes, I am.

Michael Angelo 

Great Bike, I would love to find one in that shape. Been wanting to restore an Italian bike....

jeirvine 

My '86 GC has the same fork crown. Too bad about the paint, but at least the chrome seems to be in decent shape. The flat crown with the embossed logo can be a rust magnet. Here's a good Masi USA resource: https://bhovey.com/Masi/MasiUSA.htm

repechage

As this set of fittings was used between '83 to '88 at the minimum, I associate these with the middle 80's.
Prior they used the investment cast parts that mimicked the stamped lugs.

Roadfan's bike is an outlier as he knows, his bike has a number of details that don't match up with the typical production frames, fork crown, angles, rear dropouts to name some he has mentioned here and there.
Over time there have been a handful of those, special order, employee builds.

This red repaint has lived a hard knock life. The problem with this era of Masi is that they are only now beginning to achieve over $1k in value and size and condition is key. A faithful to original repaint is possible but not very economic yet if done professionally. I am sure Miamijim is aware of this and did not spend too much.

This bike is probably in the 56 cm size +/- as Masi measures. A good size. The Silva or Silva style cable guides should be around to replace the missing one.

As to those who admire it as an Italian bike, by this time I think they were so many iterations away from the original Carlsbad factory bikes that these are American. Support your Flag, Buy American, Buy a MASI.

Zieleman

+1 also would love to hear the story about finding this. When finished, post them before&after pics please
The infill of the holes on that chainring (you know what I mean right?)is going to be a real treat to work on. The other stuff ass well, of course.

VonCarlos

Can you see if the decals were just sprayed over?

shoota 

I would love to hear it too!

miamijim

So here's the back stroy....

Over the weekend I went to buy a bike of this guy, he say's, "I'm selling everything, the 2 mountian bikes, my wife's hybrid, even the repair stand." I said, "how much?". He threw a number at me, I countered, he said, "no", I said, "OK" and ended up buying 4 bikes and the repair stand. Now, i dont need any of these bikes, and I certainly dont need 2 mountain bikes and a hybrid. I dont have time to be fixing, marketing, flipping and all that.

My immediate goal was to turn over the 2 mountain bikes and hybrid to recoup some of my money and bring down my inital investment. All I wanted was to make $100 profit on each of the 3 bikes I didnt intend to buy.

So I text'd one of the local flip guy I know. "Hey, you interested in 2 mountain bikes and a hybrid?" He initaly said no, but later in the day he asked what I wanted for the hybrid. We agreed on a price and I deilvered it to him. So were standing around B.S'n and he says, "A friend of mine just bought a Masi at thrift store for $XY." I went on full alert and replied, "really?" He proceeds to whip out the smart phone and shows me the pics. I told him to tell his friend I'd give him $XYZ. His friend accepted.

A half hour ago we met up at the WAWA, I bought the Masi and gave the flipper one of the mountain bikes I bought to sell on consignment.

More pics:

repechage

From 1984. Probably Joe Starck built.
What a suffering overcoat of paint it has.

miamijim

This is clearly an '84 serial numbered with the pantographing machine I read about on Hovey's website. I felt the TT for evidence of a 3rd cable guide and couldn't feel anything. I'm sure there was 3rd one, the other 2 are spaced too far apart for there not to be.

My first order of buisness is to tear it down and inspect everything and to remove some of the paint off the TT see if there's evidence of a 3rd cable guide. If the bearings are good, I may just do a basic overhaul, I dont know. This bike needs $200 worth of disposables plus a paint job. We'll see where it all goes.

As odd as this sounds, just by handling the bike and moving it around I can tell it'll ride more like a De Rosa then a Colnago.

@VonCarlos: I'll try to find out tonight. I have to get reaqdy for a trip to -10 degree Minnesota so it may have to wait until the weekend.

shoota 

Told ya he would go for it. I didn't realize you'd come out that ​good though.

miamijim

It wasn't that good. I made a little on the hybrid and I'm sure Robert made a finders fee for brokering the Masi deal. And as you know, I only told part of the story. If I told the enitre story I'd be typing for an hour...

shoota 

Ok. But Masi > hybrid at about any price

Narhay

Maybe it is just the way they are made but that fork looks a little suspect.

miamijim

probably just the pic angle. I thoroughly inspected the frame and fork.

Narhay

Probably. But what's a C&V discussion without someone saying the fork is bent?