[CR]Carpenter options

I am now the lucky owner of the aforementioned Carpenter f/f recently on ebay: http://tinyurl.com/ly68c

My apologies to anyone I outbid. In the usual post-auction remorse I must say I had a moment of "what the hell am I doing."

Nonetheless, now that I'm the caretaker, I'm mulling over a problem that we'll be talking about at the cirque during the Saturday presentations, to wit, restoration.

I've paid for many restorations; but the problem never gets any easier to resolve.

I'm very tempted to leave the frame as it is, have it shipped here, and, by and by, I'll put it together.

However, the frame really does look pretty toasted, right on the edge of my personal line for a restoration.

And...Argos in Bristol is very reasonable for restorations of frames like this, and would do an excellent job (although their pin-striping on the seat-stay caps is on the crude side).

Argos could restore the frame to better-than-new...but then, of course, it wouldn't be original anymore. And the cost, while reasonable compared to prices here, will still be significant.

So...what would you do?

Please cc me in any post to the list.

Thanks for your help.

Charles Andrews
SoCal