My son and I had the priviledge of spending part of last Saturday with Alberto Masi at his shop in the Vigorelli. I found him intelligent, affable and highly informative. His shop was neater and cleaner than a surgical suite.
We had gone to obtain his advice and approval on the restoration of an all chromed Prestige that I have undertaken. Not only did he approve the restoration, but provided us with details on the frame preparation, chroming, clear coating, trim and decal placement. It turns out that his own personal Prestige is entirely chromed! He felt that no one he knew in Italy was presently capable of chroming an entire bike and was pleased that it could be done in the US.
He then showed us a number of very interesting period bikes, and bike parts, detailing their history. Perhaps the most interesting was his recently restored ("from a mass of rust") model "Fiera", with fenestrated seat stays. We were informed that less than ten such bikes were made, one for Merckx himself. The amount of work in producing the seat stays was prodigous. Here are the photos:
http://i169.photobucket.com/