mario confente/masi california is not responsible...
that he/they/it had anything to do with the birth
of the investment cast era, (my choice of words-birth of...),
is irrelevent, and perhaps untrue.
no one party is 'responsible', unless you want to 'blame'
the industry. it seemed as if overnite, every major frame
producer lined up at the doorstep of microfusione italiana
with a blueprint and a check for $5000 or something similar.
you must realize that the effect of this was not felt by
the artisan framebuilder until perhaps 5-8 years later.
this is how long it took between the time major frame
producers began using cast parts compared to smaller
shops. ('cannot define smaller shops, i know one when
i see one!). the smaller guys did not have parts made,
they bought them from framebuilding parts distributors, a
'link in a chain' which previously didn't exist. you can't
compare the economics of how one has parts cast today
with how it was done then. briefly, the costs have sky-
rocketed downwards. the level of precision casting has grown
exponentially. (there. i've done it-i've used 'exponentially'
in a sentence. yeah, baby!) initially EVERYTHING was done in
italy. then it was done in japan. now it's done it taiwan...

what was the question?
e-RICHIE