[CR]Original run Carlsbad Masi. LONG

i just returned from a night out and cannot possibly address all the mail pertaining to this issue so i will piggy-back on to this one. peter - i was unaware you were a listee. here is what i want to add to this thread and i'll be as civil as i can without being too ambiguous. i was contacted by peter to assess a frame that he possessed for the purpose of valueing it. in the course of a few week's emails it was determined that i might also be interested in it - not just assessing it, but owning it. i told peter that the pics weren't enough and we agreed that he'd send the frame to me and i'd send it back. upon examining it i found all that i stated this a.m. in my initial reply to tom sander's first post. read it. i was sheepish about outing my opinions on it and qualified my reply as such. i dislike the herd mentality that sometimes occurs onlist when it comes to ebay policing. i went on record years ago stating this dislike - others, the majority, agreed that the list was cool with it - so i just went with the flow. i prolly made 3 comments total re an ebay "scam" through the ensuing years, prolly due to to lack of self-control. today was one of them. in one or two of the private emails i read that perhaps i concocted the story in order to lowball the seller. F(*^&$# that. okay? i can torch tubes until next sunday but the last thing i would do is take a supposedly rare and early masi and repair it. it would no longer be a masi or the work of masi. nuff said on that. to wit, if peter had asked me prior to the auction, i would have reiterated my position: a cool old frame - but - less value due to damage previously noted. he didn't concur with my opinion "then" and, in listing it yesterday, he didn't seek it as a follow-up. there's nothing i can do about that. i would like to add that it was also brought to my attention this p.m. that the archives are in the public domain; i didn't know that. as i wrote this a.m. i was opining privately on our CR list and would never have gone to this "trouble" on public forums such as usenet or http://www.roadbikereview.com. i stand by my notes from today. i apologize for tarnishing the possibility of higher bids for this auction. i can't unring this bell. the last thing i'm going to say about this, i hope, is that i saw the follow-up pics that were posted and was reminded of another reason i was not sure this frame had holy grail status: to my memory the fork had been cut too short to have the full length necessary to accomodate a n.r. headset. i "recall" it being 4-5mm too short. see the pic on the left to view. good night.
e-RICHIE
chester, ct