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@andyp
When it was launched, in around 1999/2000, the Planet was De Rosa's top of the range aluminium race bike and was used by the Riso Scotti team, who De Rosa supplied bikes too at the time.
It was replaced by the first Merak frame, which used Dedaccai's UD tubing, a year or two later. I had one of those which was ridiculously light, very stiff and not very robust (the tubing was so thin you could feel it depress when pressed with your thumb). The Planet was a lot more robust.
All De Rosa's aluminium frames were built in house, so the quality would've been very high (they were then one of the leading Italian manufacturers).
As a company, De Rosa was established by Ugo De Rosa in the late 1950s and he built frames for the likes of Merckx and other top professionals. He was widely recognised as being one of the leading builders in the Italian cycling industry. Ugo's three sons now run the business and they are still one of Italy's premium framebuilders. They have a factory in the northern suburbs of Milan where a lot of the production is still done. The last time I was there, approx 7-8 years ago, Ugo De Rosa was still building frames, and he was in his 70s then.
A friend of mine rode one for years and he loved it.