The value of a Confente bike is partly that Mario really did advance the craft of bike framebuilding in his day and time and probably also largely that he died too young to have had his image change with age, changes in his work, and maybe some large, public mistakes he might have made--who knows, in 2001 a still-living Mario could be designing carbon bikes for Trek, or titanium ones for Litespeed, or back to custom building after those gigs plus a few years designing bargain mountain bikes for al-Mart! Confente's name carries the same "halo effect" that, say, Jimi Hendrix's or Mozart's does with musicians. We don't have to know what disco or new-age embarassment Hendrix would have produced or how a grumpy, aging, Mozart would have published criticisms of Beethoven and Mendelsohn as unmusical, talentless posers! Hey, the bikes were good, he died too young and may have been screwed around by his handlers and employers, but there were equals to his bikes being built then some even by builders who are still working today.
David Feldman
> I just got up to speed on the Confente on Ebay by reading the item
> description. I am new to the bike collecting thing and have always
thought
> of them as something to ride, race and mostly likely to have fun with.
What
> makes a bike like this worth so much? You could contact a current frame
> builder and have one created just like it for far less. If it were a car
it
> would depend on who owned it or raced it -- this bike has not been raced
it
> did not win the Tour D' France no one famous owned it. The equipment on
it
> is nothing special - the owner is going to throw in the old worn out
chain,
> bar tape and brake hoods, again it was never raced they are old worn-out
> parts - so Confente touched them is he some demi God now or something?
In
> my mind this is not worth any more than a Masi built in the US. I guess
some
> of you are going to get pissed off at me but I think this group likes it
when
> someone starts arguments. Sam DiBartolomeo