Dave,
Thanks for shareing your observations and experiences. The three bikes
you have handy are an interesting group; perfect for a comparison
regarding "quality" of bikes of this period. I'd like to add a few
things from my perspective if you don't mind. Quality is in the eye of
the observer; each of us have slightly different tastes, experiences,
and in some cases, more in depth knowledge of the framebuilding process
as it relates to "quality". I'd like to say right off the bat, if you
like it and it works, then it is already of a certain quality. It serves
its purpose as a functional object and it pleases your eye, regardless
of what others think. That's quality by ones' own deffinition.
>From a construction/finish viewpoint there will again be many differing
opinions. Please allow me to relate what I see based on my ownership of
most of the bikes in the comparison and having worked on large
quantities of all of them. Seeing the bare frames is a bit more telling
than seeing the finished frame ( which must have original paint for this
study) so I have some impressions about the quality of each frame. I may
have been working at Masi when your 1976 Masi was built.
For starters, let's compare the situations under which each frame was built. You may not know exactly what actual contrast each frame has to the others. I don't know everything about any of the way each of these frames were built; but I will state what I believe to be true so we can discuss the principal involved. Essentially what we are talking about is production numbers, company philosophy, and production and finishing techniques.
I know least about your Raleigh, but chances are it would be the bike built in the greatest numbers compared to the others. Most Raleighs are simple designs with not too much handwork, but made in such a way that they appear clean and consistant. I've seen quite a few rough Raleighs, but by 1979 a Team Raleigh was probably rather refined compared to the early 70's Raleigh Pro frames. Sound basic production framebuilding. Don't know if they are hand brazed or not, but I would imagine they were.
The 1973 Paramount was built by the ladies and gentlemen that worked for the Paramount division of Schwinn; I'm sure many know the whole story much better than I, but I only have my impression of the "Grandma Paramounts" from my dealings with them and some folklore. I don't know how many were produced per month, but during the bike boom they were a bit more hastily made than in the time just prior to that, from what I understand. Workmanship wise, let me say this; in actuality there was very little handwork put into Paramounts of the period. As a matter of fact, the lugs, crowns, and BB shells went onto the frames untouched by a file. No edge put on, no sharpening or refining of the profile whatsoever. No big deal really, a Peugeot PX-10 was done the same way. What may appear to be "nice workmanship" on your 1973 Paramount is actually the effect of lots of shiny chrome (we all know how men feel about chrome!) and the generous buffing by whoever was polishing the frames for plating. The deep rich chrome of a Paramount also helped cover the lack of any previous attempt at workmanship. The blob of nickel silver around the domed and slotted forks and stays only required the polisher to finish them (thusly exposing LOTS of tiny pinholes in the braze material) and the machine ground finish of the seat stay caps frequently ground off most of the braze material that should have penetrated the joint to hold the cap on. A file never touched the inside of the super thick inside tang of the Nervex crown nor the lugs or dropouts. I think the only handwork on a Paramount is in finishing the fillets around the brake bridge and chainstay bridge. A Paramount was always built with the heavy gauge Reynolds 531 tubing regardless of frame size, which made small frames rediculously heavy and dead feeling if one is used to the Italian iron of the period. The steering was poor in my size also, which always annoys me bigtime. But if one likes their Paramount you most certainly have my blessing. But I have repaired several that had top tubes that were about 1/4"(!!!) away from intersecting the seat tube. Remarkably I've never seen a broken Paramount in that location. These are just my experiences and impressions.
The 1976 Masi GC being difficult to detect as being of appreciably higher degree of workmanship is a little unfair in that the Masi was built using investment cast lugs, which heavily cheats the workmanship part of the vintage lug. But if one compared a Nervex DuBois lug used on a 1973/74 Carlsbad Masi to the Nervex Professional lug being used by Schwinn at the same time, there is no comparison in the level of craftsmanship. Furthermore, the Masis were built starting with high quality sand cast Fischer BB shells and crowns as compared to the rather inferior Gargatte stamped BB shell and the hedious Nervex (at least in the raw condition, although my Lippy has a beautifully finished Nervex) crown. The results of the Masi shell are wonderful and require a lot of filing and profiling; the Gargatte was put on raw and untouched. There were MANY frames built by all kinds of builders from many countries who were putting nice edges and decent finish filing on Nervex Pro lugs. Schwinn Paramounts of 1973 were just plain untouched for the most part, it was not the "style" of the period. Big difference in the quality of the bikes in that alone by my standards. The lug shaping and finish filing involved in accomplishing some of the best production lug filing of all time may be difficult to comprehend for those who have not built any vintage type frames. On account of this I will be giving a live lug filing demonstration at Le Cirque 2003 to help enlighten those who are interested in knowing more about what it takes to make vintage frames and what seperates one from another in terms of workmanship. I will be giving more details shortly. This demonstration will be held on the Friday of Le Cirque sometime in the evening and will take place in Dales' home workshop.
Siginificant effort was expended at Masi in the early days at Carlsbad to insure a superior quality product. Faliero insisted upon it. We were glad to respond with our best abilities because it made one proud to do so. Mario was a world class brazer and framebuilder and the whole of Masis' experiece was put forth through him as shop foreman when The Big F wasn't around. Tried and true handmade production and finishing standards were met and exceeded during this time. I still did not like the steering qualities of the frames my size so I didn't like riding them myself, but as far as a quality piece of workmanship, even the 1976 Masi is considerably more so than the Schwinn in my opinion. The Raleigh may compare more closely to the Paramount than the Masi, but I really don't know much about how those Raleighs were made.
Paintwise and graphics, again the Masi is to my eye more pleasing and exciting to look at. No question that the bikes painted at Carlsbad were some of the finest small production paintjobs in the world. I'm not wild about the Masi color selection, but that goes for the Schwinn and Raleigh colors as well. But quality of paint and application, the Masi is clearly the best of the three.
So for me, quality is a little more than skin deep, perhaps the curse of having seen too much and knowing more than one might want to know about the frames; and yet quality isn't anywhere near all there is to the charm of vintage bikes. Some of the Rene Herse frames I've worked on are scary ugly inside the BB shell; but is anyone questioning their value and charm? No one I know. We all have our personal setiments and taste in bikes. I enjoy bikes that display higher as opposed to lower degree of design and finish; but I don't discount anything if its only fault is that it is a piece of crap. Crap is charming too, at times. If it's crap and it still looks good to you and you like the way it rides (or something else about it); it's obviously not useless and therefore someone should give it love, no?
In closeing, to me there is a world of difference in workmanship between the Masi and the Schwinn, but that's just me. Old Colnagos (early 70's) are very cool to me and the workmanship is not bad at all on almost every one I've seen, but most importantly with the Colnago I enjoy the ride a lot. So to me they have greater value as a rider. This comes out even for me. I appreciate the styling and craftsmanship of the early Masis but I heavily prefer the ride and in many ways the look (especially double taper seat stays) of the early Colnago. I'm afraid I don't have the desire to add a Schwinn (for which I have as much attachment to as any typical garden tool) or Raleigh to my small collection of junk, because a poor ride and poor workmanship don't do it for me; although the Raleigh may be fine in both regards, it still doesn't say "hello" to me. Now a Flying Scot, I'm ALL OVER those bikes! Easily the caliber of early Masis in my opinion. Maybe I should just button my lip.
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA Never mind me, just another comment from the peanut gallery. And now back to you, Buffalo Bob.
>
> The comment about contrasting a mid-70s Paramount and a mid-70s Masi struck a responsive cord with me. Sitting in my home office, across from the computer where I am typing this are three 1970s bikes, a 1973 Paramount P-15, a 1976 Carlsbad Masi GC, and a 1979 Raleigh Team (531).
> All three of the bikes are in like new condition, well maintained by their original owners and restored by their last or by someone like Cyclart (who did a touch up on my otherwise very clean Masi earlier this year).
>
>
>
> So, I guess I will vote with those who don't want to consign the early 70s Paramounts to the 'also-ran' catagorey (and, until my 1959 is finished, can't do a 'side-by-side' with these two or other bikes of the era or eras.) Ride? The Masi is the smoothest, most 'modern' of the three, with the Paramount clearly behind here, but then again, the Masi is rather special in that area. The Team? Fast, stiff, and a lot of fun, just not for a long ride!
>
> Dave Novoselsky
> Chicago, Illinois