Steven,
I have another "GR" Masi here now, but it will be gone in a few days. It is the first one I'd seen thus far. There are a few other letters I've seen also. "B", "C", "AV", and "P". Any ideas about those? I'm particularly curious about the "AV" mark.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
Grant wrote about Giuseppe Pelà, refering to the Tommasini website where it writes about how Tommasini used the skills learned under Pelà in his Grossetto workshop. Maybe this is finally the missing link to a Masi frame that I have sitting in Itay. It was built in the 70's and has a GR on the BB shell. Brian wasn't able to tell me who the framebuilding subcontractor could have been, but it could now be pointing to Tommasini. GR is in fact the province indicator for the province of Grossetto (MI would be correct for Milan but a simple M is more than sufficient to avoid any confusion with any other province. Likewise, V would also point to the most populous province with a V which is Verona, whose provincial contraction would otherwise be VR. A single G would however point to Genova and most definitely not Grossetto, hence the double letter). As Pelà was a Masi builder, it only seems logical that his 'student' Tommasini would also be called upon in the case of need.
Any comments?
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Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ