Charles Jalguna

I sort of inherited this bike from who might have been the original owner over 20 years ago. He had owned a small business in Pacific Grove and while this was his occasional commuter home to Carmel Valley it was more often a bike path cruiser around 17 Mile Drive and left in his office overnight. When I got it it had a safely flag holder wire tied to the seatstay and was set up as an 80's Campy triple. But it came to me with what appeared to be the original double drive train, so I cleaned the bike up, but the older parts back on it with some fresh cables and tape and took it for a couple parade rides. It now graces a higher position in my garage rafters.

It's been repainted for sure, and has a Cycle Art logo on the left chainstay. The paint is ok, not great, either from poor prep or more likely those overnights near the coast. I threw some random Cinelli stem on it because I couldn't find a replacement for the 7mm bolt that had broken in the original stem, but the the original stem is here, and pantographed like the shifters, but also with paint in the cutouts. The QR levers were rusty and flat so I replaced them with these curved levers because they are prettier and I believe more correct for the year of this bike. I have been told the top tube cable guides were likely added when the bike was repainted and the wheels are wrong for this build but much of the history of this bike is now up to speculation as the guy I got it from has moved on to the next step of life.

But my question remains in the spirit of this forum. What do you think my bike is worth?

GhostRider62

I have a 1972 Italian Masi GC with not so good paint. Someone offered me $1500 a few years ago, I wanted $2000. They refused. My rationale was the parted out bike was worth 2K. It had brand new $200+ worth of tubies on it and all the Campy parts were pristine.

joesch

Bring it to EROICA CALIFORNIA 01 May 2022 and you may get a very nice offer like suggested above

spudly

Yes! I don't know how much the non-original parts and paint affect the value, but a CA twin plate fork Masi is relatively rare and desirable.

OldsCOOL

Oh man....

Charles Jalguna

repechage

OK- what I see in a quick review.

Those shift levers should be on my Confente... sending a private message about that.. maybe a trade and cash?

something is possibly funky with the top tube at the middle cable guide. Those are not original and the reflection highlights are... weird.
fork crown and lower head lug point to a California Masi, probably 1974, could also be a '73 Italian, bottom bracket stamps will tell the tale and possibly stampings on the fork steerer. There are some other details like the fork einforcements that would help guide.
Respray is unfortunate and early Cyclart when in San Marcos. so paint dates to 1981ish.
1974 Carlsbad Masi paint was good but primer sealer was bad. Possibly why the repaint.
Total non standard color, the value here is in spite of the paint.
Braze on shifters were an option. (little known)
Small chainring appears inverted to obtain more use, chainring fasteners should be flush.
Phil hubs have seen a hard knock life. even if the bearings are good, the hubs are never going to be redeemed to show condition, commuter service.
Bike was of the flat hub QR era, curved appear in 1977-78.
The top tube for me is the issue, the guides should come off, and the top tube assessed, Just not sure.

I bought a original paint Carlsbad GC with the twin plate crown but tragic paint that was worse than reported for $1,780. wheels were only good for the hubs.
I paid too much but the chrome on the fork was terrific.
So, up to $1,800? The paint, lack of chrome, incorrect, worn parts.
If the top tube is in trouble... less.
Bike looks about a 58 cm Masi Measure, BB center to tip top pf the seat lug.

Charles Jalguna

That's all great information, thank you. And yes, it looks like a 59cm

Winning Wheels Bike Shop is still in Pacific Grove and claims to have been owned by the Chavez family for 35 years. Maybe old Hector was building wheels for a few years before he opened the shop and these wheels were built around same time the bike was painted. I think the prior owner of this bike moved to Carmel from Southern California in 1974 or 1975.

Can anyone here date the stem that was on the bike when I got it? It had an aluminum 7mm allen clamping the handlebar.

59 MC56

59 MC56

repechage

Pretty early Carlsbad bike.
MC56 is the serial number - so, 56+25, the 81st built. First 25 were differently Numbered.

this bikes serial number can get confusing as early in the 100's the size Is after the MC and the serial number by itself.
note that in Italy bikes did not get serial numbers.

So, cool bike that has been laid waste by Cyclart.

the stem is late '72 to '73. Short lived as 1973 brought the smooth surface stems, the one with the yellow paint fill took an Allen key bar fixing bolt, earlier were with a nutted fixation.

Carlsbad Masi bikes came with Masi signature pantographed 3ttt stems and stamped bars or Cinelli 1a with #64 bend bars standard.

bike was built when Falerio and Mario were in the building. There was another Italian builder too, unclear when he returned home.

Babado

Beautiful, I had a Masi back in the day, amazing frames

spudly

Good info. Were the Masi 3ttt stems/bars an extra cost option? I haven't seen many of them, and I think mainly on circa '75 bikes. Also, was there initially only one other frame builder in CA other than Falerio and Mario? If that's the case, wouldn't Mario have worked on many of these early frames?

repechage

Was an early item, not extra cost. Neither was the Masi California wool jersey that came with the first 25 bikes. the 3ttt bar and stem were paired with a 3ttt saddle with M foil embossing, few liked the shape of the saddle. Once the branded stem and bars were gone, never reordered.
Other features on the bikes, like the twin plate fork crown which went away before frame 300. Too much work, and only one guy brazed it.
Everyone wanted Cinelli saddle and bars, stem anyway.
The shop I worked for would offer the 3ttt saddles for $5 as an upgrade to people who bought a Peugeot UO8 or Nishiki Olympic.

Falerio did not build frames in California, he did teach how to file, build wheels, thread toe straps, tape bars and rivet them off, glue tires, the complete assembly and packing procedure.
Masi bikes were extremely well packed. Even the carton tape was special, Masi California printed in two colors plus tan background.
From Italy was almost everything needed to get the shop running, save handlebar plugs.
So, Masi bikes came with an American part from the beginning, White Hunt-Wilde handlebar plugs.

banana jam 

Lucky man. I've had some hector built wheels they were among the best. Worth saving/putting energy into.

Lord Donnington

My Masi #670 in 1975 has a twin plate fork crown. Roberto was one of the other Italians who came over with Mario and Faliero. Who would have brazed the first 25 frames?

repechage

#670 would be early 1975, or late late 1974. Note the forks were made in batches and basically to size, then left to the chrome shop. Bike 1000 was about mid 1975. that was probably peak production. As Bob Hovey has written, probably a bell curve of output.

The first 25 were built by essentially any one of the three who arrived. No idea on who painted them.
Mario claimed he built mine. Long ago stolen.
There are some differences between the first group that I have seen, so there may be clues to authorship, the seat lug shows the biggest variation.
The first 25 were a push to get stuff out the door.
the project had been a long time in coming together, money had been spent, time for some revenue.

himespau 

It is cool, but the paint does appear to have been laid on pretty thick.

Lord Donnington

I had a nice email exchange with Jim Adney who was US employee number 3. Here’s his recall of how the first 25 frames were constructed:



“In the beginning, there were two office employees, Roger Smith and ???, the
accountant (I'll come up with his name eventually.)

Before I arrived there was Ron Smith (painter) and Marcel Calborn (sp?)
(Frenchman, translator.) I was the third shop employee and first brazer,
arriving, I believe, in Aug '73. I don't know which, Ron or Marcel, was first. (Me-Ron was first hired but Marcel seemed to be right there at the beginning according to Dominic Phipps)

Faliero Masi arrived later that fall, and after him Mario Confenti and Roberto
? arrived together. Mario was 28, I was 27, and Roberto was in his lower
20s. Mario stayed, but Roberto went home after a couple months. Neither of
them spoke any English, so it must have been terribly lonely for them here.

All the brazing of the 1 S frames was done by either me or Mario, except that
Falerio may have done parts of 1S1. which Mario characterized as a
"disastro." I had to agree. I don't recall the exact division of labor but I'm
pretty sure I did all of the fork ends and crowns, once Mario showed me what
he wanted, and Mario started out doing the frames. He eventually taught me
the ropes and turned that over to me, too. So there's a good chance that
Mario did 1S7, but it could have been me.

It's also likely that 1S7 wasn't actually the 7th frame brazed. The serial
numbers would have been stamped in before painting but after lug filing, so
there would have been plenty of time to get frames out of order. 1S1 was the
only one that would have been distinctive, in that it may have had extra
holes in some lugs and extra points welded onto some lugs. This was
Faliero's doing, and the rest of us didn't understand why he wanted this. This
was probably before Mario arrived and got things straightened out.

The forkcrowns were brazed with straight blades, but, for the life of me I
don't remember when/how they were bent, or how/if they were checked
afterwards. I didn't do it. I seem to recall a stamping form, but that may have
been for plain blades, not finished forks.
(Me-Brian told me once that Faliero bent the early forks himself on a jig)

Rear triangles were brazed and forkends filed separately, then bent to match
the frame size being made and tacked together with the front triangle.
Tacking was done in the frame jig, but final brazing was done free hanging,
to avoid thermally induced stress. So the finished brazing was done on a
complete frame. I don't understand why some people think it's a good idea to
put the bottom bracket and seat lug thru two heating cycles; that probably
doubles the time and propane spent on heating those parts.

I think Brian, and Mike arrived somewhat later, probably after (most of?)
those 57 cm 1S (first series) frames were brazed. I seem to recall that Chuck
arrived the next day. It probably took us much more than a month to work
thru that first series. We didn't have a good production system and we
weren't fast, but we were learning and speeding up.

I don't know how many frames per month we got up to, but it wasn't anything
to brag about.

For the first series, Ron Smith and I probably did most of the lug filing at first.
Falerio did some, to try to show us what to do. In the beginning we wasted a
LOT of time trying to file the lug surfaces before brazing, because that's
what Falerio wanted. Eventually, only the shoreline was filed before brazing;
the lug surfaces were done after brazing. Brian, Mike, and Chuck would
have done most of that, as well as the forkend finish filing.

Ron Smith did all the painting. We had a terrible time with the oven that was
supposed to bake the frames after painting. The people who built it had to
keep revising the design until it got hot enough.

I learned a LOT from Ron about bike frame esthetics.

Gian Simonetti may have become an employee at some point. He was only
there because he could speak Italian, got along with Faliero, and knew what
a bicycle was.

Hope this helps.

Jim”

Lord Donnington

Bob Hovey’s site lists 1.S.9 as having been stolen in the 70’s. I hope it’s out there somewhere and gets recovered.