Gang,
Finally got a better look at the Confente track frame on ebay thanks to Lee Berg. It's the genuine article as far as I can tell from the photos. Not sure why someone might think it was not genuine.
I can't figure out why someone would have an extra fork built for the bike, since a real track frame won't have road bike clearance for the fork, which seems to be the case here; otherwise a brake won't fit on the road fork. Further, does it have track geometry and a high BB or road geometry and a low bb (death on the track). Seems to me that someone has a bike that won't do either one properly. I'm a bit surprised Mario would do such a thing, especially since the guy was trying to get two frames for the price of one, and ended up getting none.
Clearly it's a nice collectable, but I never liked Marios approach to the rear track dropouts; don't look graceful to me. Maybe I need to have my eyes recalibrated in Italian! This frame (hopefully) is likely to be one of a kind and (sort of) track which is always more rare than a road bike. I just would't want to be the person who is going to pay the big bucks for a bike that has queer geometry. Let's just wait and see what kind of money it brings.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA