The earliest Italian Gran Crit I've seen with short dropouts and the slot-shouldered fork is John Waner's, it has a 1-73 date stamp on the steerer. I was extremely skeptical of a bike with these details appearing this early since Alberto was using the twin plate crowns on GC's well into 1974, but Richard Sachs said the short droupouts were available that early, and John contacted Alberto to confirm the date, which he did.
As to the move from concave to beveled stay ends (John's are concave), the earliest bike with a date stamp that I've seen them on so far is April 1975, but of course he could have introduced them earlier. Alberto kept the GC in production alongside the Prestige until 1979, but since there seem to have been quite a few bikes with neither steering tube or BB date stamps, it's hard to pin down exactly when he switched from concave to bevel, or if he just did whichever one he felt like at any given time.
Bob Hovey Columbus, GA
On Apr 21, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Art Link wrote:
> Masi GC, 58 cm,"updated" mods. on German ebay,no reserve.
> #330111863175 No relation to seller ,etc. Art Link,San Antonio,TX,USA
The seller says this Masi GC dates from 1974 but it obviously isn't.
I think the key to its date is the treatment of the ends of the seat
and chain stays shown in the second from last photo:
http://people.freenet.de/
Looks like the way Alberto did them on his Masi Prestige; not the way Faliero did them on his Masi GC? Any Masi experts care to comment?
Chuck Schmidt
South Pasadena, CA USA
http://www.velo-retro.com (reprints, t-shirts & timelines)