The short thread yesterday about expert restorations and how much respect they receive (or not) has suggested another thought to me. Is a bike refinished by the original builder a restoration or an original?
I have an early 80's Matt Assenmacher refinised by Matt. Also a Richard Sachs refinished by Joe Bell who likely painted it in the first place. And Doug Fattic is currently offering for sale bikes he built for his inlaws which he plans to refinish before delivery. And I think Peter Weigle occasionally modifies and refinishes frames he built several yeras earlier.
So are these originals or restorations? If the same hands finish it a second time, is it then again "original"?
Antique furniture, like bikes, is much more valuable in original condition. But what if the original craftsman refinished the piece during his lifetime? Would this decrease the value? And how, 100 years later, would anyone know it had been refinished?
Or to site another analogy, some of the great masters were known to produce paintings over top of an earlier works of theirs with which they had presumably not been satisfied. Does this make the final piece not original, simply because there is another underneath? If DiVinci had painted the Mona Lisa on a recycled canvas, would it then be "nonoriginal"?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, TX