Greg Parker wrote, in part:
"But so are Hetchins, Ephgraves, Hurlows, Singers, Herses, Uragos, Gillotts, Sachs, Baylis, Columbines, Pop Brennans, DeRosas, Pogliaghis... (well, you probaly get the point. Sorry for rambling)."
You know, I was ready to agree with you this morning. I was looking over a really lovely late-70s Bill Davidson I recently built up as a touring bike. Triple cranks, 27" wheels on those cool Weinman concave rims (thanks Mark!)--the frame was built esp. for 27" wheels--nice medium metallic blue paint, thinned and sculpted long-point italian-style lugs that Davidson supposedly brought home in his pocket from Italy in about 1976...some wonderfully refined little details like the interlocked circular cutouts in the lugs, highlighted in white. I kept that frame for two years before I built it up, solely because it was so pretty I couldn't bear to part with it. The whole bike cost me about $700, and that's being generous. Workmanship-wise, the frame is arguably equal to the Confente on ebay. And it rides like a dream. I've already logged a lot of miles on it. This morning I thought "hell, it's as nice as that Confente, what am I fretting about?"
But, I recently went and looked at a Confente now being worked on at Encino Cycles...and I was awed once again. There is a magic in those frames, a magic duplicated by no other frames I've ever seen, except maybe those by Baylis and Sachs....I can't tell you what it is, but there's something about the superhuman cleanliness of the craftsmanship, coupled with the italian style, that is simply not found in any of the frames you mentioned, and I've owned or seen them all...
Couple this with the rarity of the frames, and the reputation of the builder, and, I suppose, such a bike is worth whatever someone wants to pay...no argument from me.
Charles "I'm probably not the buyer either, but I wish I were, no ifs, ands, or buts" Andrews Los Angeles