Jerry, I will offer an alternative opinion, based on an Italian made Masi GC from the early 70's. I bought the bike on ebay last summer for $800. It was a red spray can repaint, but was obviously (to my amateur trained eye) the Masi it was represented to be by the seller. I scooped it up very quickly using "buy it now", yet realizing it would be slightly too small for me. I decided I wanted to have it restored by Baylis, and maybe ride it, maybe keep it, maybe sell it. Brian did a bang-up job, repainting the bike in the medium Masi metallic blue. Thank you again, Brian.
I ended up listing the frame six months later on ebay and to my surprise it sold for $2000 - hence I netted a handsome profit. Truthfully, I did not expect to do much better than break even, but when it comes to early 1970's Masi's, the market remains quite hot. If any CR listers would like me to send before/after photos of the bike, just LMK. -Dan Borden in Brookline, MA
At 5:30 AM -0700 7/15/05, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
>I'll second, from the customer side, what Brian said. I've had
>several frames restored, always with the full knowledge that I could
>never recoup the cost by selling them. There is simply, absolutely,
>no money in paying to restore a bike, then selling it. At least not
>if you pay to have it done properly by one of the highly skilled
>people on this list, including Brian. Perhaps a restorer might make
>a bit of money by buying and restoring frames himself, or at least
>make something for his time. But this would only make sense if he
>had idle time on his hands. As long as he has plenty of orders, he
>will do MUCH better by simply doing restorations for paying
>customers.