Tom wrote:
"In 200 years that Colnago will be in a museum and if the curator is knowledgable he/she will describe it as a "contemporary" refinish. The original finished bikes will be sadly rusted through and recycled as soup cans by then. Would you care if someone had polished up King Tut's mask within 30 years of his burial? Perhaps put some thicker gold on it? Heck no. "
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Sorry Tom, but I must disagree with you categorically. That Colnago is a sad piece of work, and no collector would go near it. You want it, by all means, go ahead, but before you start dissing collectors, you might want to do a little research first. There are a lot of "bug collectors" on this list, and they might know a wee bit more about all this than you do.
Not to mention the fact that any clean original will likely be well-taken-care of at this point, so it's highly unlikely it'll end up "rusted through." Us "bug collectors" tend to be pretty careful about that.
Original paint is always more desirable. In 200 years that colnago will be laughed at--and trust me, a number of us are laughing at it now--and originals will be in museums. That's how it goes. Hardly the same thing as Tut's burial mask. For a true collector the only thing that frame is good for is as a rider (though it wouldn't give much pleasure in use, looking the way it does, not if you know how it could look), or as raw material to buy, strip, and restore in more rewarding fashion.
and if you can't have original paint, something that evokes the original is the next best choice. The painter and client in this case decided to do something that draws attention to the fact that this is anything but original.
My own feeling is that this kind of paint looks crummy even on KOF frames. All details are hidden by thick paint and thicker clear-coat. There's no art in it. It's crude, frankly. It takes a lot more skill to do it right.
Let's put it this way: put that frame, and a totally original frame in clean condition, on ebay, and see which one fetches more money. Care to bet? That's the bottom line, and by that measure, original nearly always comes out ahead, all other things being equal. Not to mention that original, or plausibly original, is far more rewarding in use or to show. Subjective? Yup. Ask most people who've been around this stuff awhile though, and they'll say the same.
I'll be posting pictures by and by to compare that frame with an original, and anyone can make their own judgement.
Charles Andrews Los Angeles
"everyone has elites; the important thing is to change them from time to time."
--Joseph Schumpeter, via Simon Johnson