In a message dated 12/1/04 12:10:18 AM, Brad Stockwell writes:
> >It was my understanding that the leading zero in the Carlsbad Masi serial
> number was adopted after the number onethousand was reached.
>
> >On that assumption, Dale's MC61 01 would come right after MC63 1000, which
> was auctioned on Ebay last year (I think Sheldon was advertising it).
>
Excellent observation, Brad! It certainly fits, timewise. With the many unique details of this bike, there was a natural tendency on my part to want to take it out of the regular stream of Masi production. But your suggestion makes much more sense.
>There used to be an article on Masi dating by Jim Cunningham on the CR site
which nominated a serial number for the last Masi that was built by Confente;
I can no longer find the article but I seem to recall that it was roughly
0350. Perhaps someone can verify that?
>I think Brian identified 0370 as an early Eisentraut bike circa 1977, a
while ago.
This agrees very closely with the info I've got. John Jorgensen said (this is from memory, my notes are at home and I'm writing this from work) that he got M5 late in 1975 and Mario left soon after that (so far, no word of any "Special Build" bikes after M7). I have an Ebay sale for 0207 in which the seller states he ordered the bike in September of 1975, so that would be about where the "regular production" numbers would be around the time John got his bike. Mario was gone when John took delivery of 0682 in Ocober of 1976.
As for Jim's missing article, I believe it was removed because of numerous errors that people kept quoting and those who knew better got tired of repeatedly correcting. For example, it stated that the first 200 Masis had no serial numbers, that the letters in the Jim Allen (San Marcos) numbering scheme stood for builders rather than the quarter of the year, and that the Mario "Special builds" had no special numbering scheme. Here is a copy of the article:
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>From Jim Cunningham at Cycleart
Tips to determine MASI USA bicycles' age & other details 10/9/99.
Jim kindly sent this letter referencing Masi California production to the Classic Rendezvous Vintage Lightweight mailing list:
"Frame size measured from BB center to the top at the side of the seat tube (not the center line of the top tube, or seat lug point) is preceded only the letter "M" on most Italian built bikes. "MC" for Masi california (not Mario Confente) built in 1974-6.
Italian bikes do not have serial numbers. 1974-6 California bike serial numbers are sequential. The first 200 were unnumbered, like the Italian bikes. These were produced while Falierio was present. Numbering began then began, with "1" I believe. When 1,000 was reached the first digit, in place of a "1" was a "0" so the 1245th frame made is 0045. Confente left Masi about 0350. (somewhere, I've got the exact number recorded.) "+GF+" is sometimes visible on pre-investment cast bottom brackets; this is the mark of the swiss casting house that made the shell's "George Fisher."
All of the above numbers were stamped on the bottom bracket down tube tabs. Later numbers are on the underside of the shell running parallel to and about 5 mm from the bb cups.
I'm not sure about the few bikes produced from then until the shop was reestablished at San Marcos. I left with Confente and Brian Baylis came in. I do know the new sequence, started at San Marcos, when CyclArt shared space with Masi, became SMCXX (xx being the size in CM). This can be thought of as San Marcos California. A new sequences begun there was, for example, D8101 the first frame built in 1981. The D is for "Dave" as in Dave Moulton, who built there for several years. Dave's wife, Brenda assisted and later built frames. I have seen "DB" and "B" prefixes in this series. Rob Roberson built before Moulton and Tesch built after. I'm not sure of prefixes, but I think the date codes continued. I could probably work out the ID of the builder by date.
Confente Masis were made to measure, sometimes used different tube selection, were filed by Mario personally and had other subtle extra touches. Holes in the bottom bracket braze-on, and extra vent holes in the seat tube/top tube intersection. These pre-investment case bikes required extensive filing to shape the lugs, bottom bracket, crown, dropouts & stay ends. There was some room for the filers to create subtle variations, and several guys had a distinctive style, which I enjoyed comparing while painting the bikes. Occasionally, on noticing some small flaw cosmetic flaw I thought should be corrected before paint, I'd take the frame directly back the filer, based on knowing the subtle nuances of his style. I can still pick most of them out today, although I could not tell you how...
Confente "specials" had no special serial number sequence, being logged with all the others.
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