Vintagista's, The crack in the seat lug of that Cinelli would not be the deal breaker for me at all. Matthew's question and Kevin's and Norris's take on it would take care of the problem pretty well.
I did a similar repair for an owner that said he wanted the repair, but wanted to minimize any trace that the repair was done... I also used the washer treatment to strengthen the fix, but I first "spot faced" (this is like a flat bottomed hole that doesn't go all the way through) a recess for the washer to sit into. I brazed the washer in place, then filed it smooth, drilled the small hole and cut the slot to meet the hole. The washer was flush with the top of the face of the lug... There is plenty of meat to do this on the blue Cinelli. If you didn't want the small hole you could do the above, slot it and it would most likely be fine. The whole repair would be strong, and would disappear.
I would also consider seat post diameter as a possible culprit in causing the crack. The post's insertion can't be ruled out as mentioned previously, but I've seen more of these cracks caused by undersized posts, or posts the right supposed diameters, that have been gnarled, pitted, and then polished up to look good, but then end up on the shy side of what they're supposed to be. To take care of that and the slipping post the rider cranks up on the binder bolt and the tube "pinches", and cracks.
The post and the stem are both way high in the pictures, hopefully if a new buyer comes along he will have them down a bit and that couldn't hurt things,,, and might look a little better also.
I see no problem with fixing this frame and I think it is a cool bike with some interesting parts. That said, a new owner would have to assess whether it would all be worth it $$ (to him/her) in the end, buying the bike, doing the restoration etc.
For that price would you be able to buy a better example, all original, with just the "right" amount of patina to please your eye,,, Or would you prefer this bike, nicely, not over restored, sitting there all clean and shiney?
peter weigle
lyme, ct.
>Message: 11
>Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:26:41 -0000
>From: "kevin sayles" <kevinsayles@tiscali.co.uk>
>Subject: Re: [CR] Was "Market Slump", Now "Deal Breaker?"
>To: "Nathan Cozzolino" <cozzolino77@hotmail.com>,
<classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
>Message-ID: <7E20FEF4838D46A189804DDAB1FBE4BD@UserPC>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>reply-type=original
>That crack is certainly repairable........though it would of course spoil
>the paint.
>You could have some silver braze teased into the crack, or perhaps do what
>we used to do at Woodrup's [as a precaution rather than a cure] and that is
>extend the slot and finish off with a washer silvered on.
>cheers
>Kevin Sayles