Intassage

@edinmassI look forward to seeing the Packard labels. Below I have included several quotes from the email response from Harland Eastman, President of the Sanford-Springvale Historical Society. Particularly interesting is the last comment. Even the museum is not able to definitively distinguish which among its collection of nearly 100 robes were clearly made for an automobile. - "L. C. Chase was associated with the Goodall industries from the time Thomas Goodall became a manufacturer of woolen blankets and – some later - horse blankets in Troy, NH in the early 1850’s. Chase was the sales agency for Goodall products from that early date. Chase and Thomas Goodall worked closely together when Thomas re-established himself in Sanford, Maine in 1867." - "All carriage robes made in Sanford had a Chase label." - "As motor vehicles gradually replaced horse drawn carriages the robes became known as laprobes. I do not know when they stopped making them. Goodall manufactured for many firms including Packard." - "The Sanford-Springvale Historical Society has a collection of nearly 100 carriage robes. We have only two that were clearly made for an automobile." @Jim Bollman I hadn't noticed the tag on mine until I took a close look. When I did, I noticed a small "Chase" label. It's a very small label in one of the corners. The font on that label could help determine the date. Even the non-fir variations of laprobes are very heavy. Mine, pictured in an earlier post, is has two different shades of silk plush on each side. It weighs at least 10 pounds and has similar dimensions to yours.

edinmass: I just confirmed with the President of the Sanford Historical Society up in Maine that the Sanford Mills did manufacture many laprobes for various automobile manufacturers (including Packard) as OEM accessories - but interestingly, they all bore the Chase brand. Since Chase was the exclusive marketing arm and a partner in Sanford Mills, and since Sanford was the first manufacturer of laprobes in the US, that may have given them the clout to be able to get away with not putting the Packard brand, or other auto companies brands on their laprobes. It is also possible that the Chase brand alone carried such weight in the marketplace that the auto manufacturers preferred to have the Chase brand on them. Given this, my laprobe could have been purchased from Packard, another auto manufacturer, or from Chase. Given the information provided by the museum, and assuming Packard did not have multiple suppliers for exactly the same laprobe, there will be no way to determine conclusively whether a specific high-end Chase laprobe was purchased as an OEM accessory from Packard and other auto manufacturers, or not...

@edinmassMany people do think of Alpaca as a type of wool, and it's most commonly referred-to as that. Experts refer to it as Alpaca fiber, or Alpaca fleece. The same thing seems to apply to Mohair and Cashmere, which are from different species of goats. The descriptions of the related processes for manufacturing silk plush below are out of an early 1900s manufacturing facility fire insurance underwriters' handbook (Fire Insurance Inspection & Underwriting, The Spectator Company, C.C. Dominge and W.O. Lincoln, 1918). So it's somewhat technical with aspects of risk interjected. "SILK PLUSH—The cop yarn as used in this territory is received in skeins from the mills making same, and is woven by the local mills into the various materials. In silk and plush works, it forms the strands for the warp and filling for the backing of plush goods. The plush or piling is made of silk, cotton and mohair threads woven into a single strand. Plush is made on a weaving loom similar to a silk loom with the exception that two backings are used between which is woven the silk piling for the plush. As the woven piece leaves the loom a rapidly moving knife cuts the piling which leaves two pieces of plush. See Plush. "Striking out" machines, "tigers," "brushes" are then used. These are similar in design with the exception that the wires forming the comb are heavier for the first process. The machine consists of a wooden roller spiked with wire combs over which the goods pass. They are employed to remove any loose piling and to whip it up. The "tigers" tear out most of the loose stuff, which is found on the floor. As this is silk the hazard is light. Very little lint is made. The "Nellies" is next employed. This machine is a four-sided wooden frame in upright position. At the bottom, a wooden roller with light wire comb; at top a similar roller with bristles. The plush is wound on a centre roller, the upper roller turned by hand. As it turns -an employee "batters" the plush to open up the piling. It then enters a dry room as the plush is put on the "Nellies" wet. At the "striking out" machine, the plush is attached to a strip of cambric which is first drawn over the rollers and brushes so that as soon as the machine is started the end of the plush will be combed. At this machine the material is first steamed to soften the texture. The cambric cloths are dried in a dryer similar to laundry drier. Silk is woven on a single loom. Winders and spoolers are similar to those in knitting mills. Dyeing is a wet process; aniline colors, muriatic acid, bichromate of potash and nitrate of soda being used. COP—The top or head of a thing. The conical roll of thread formed on the spindle of a spinning machine. COP YARN—(used for weaving cloth) - A loose-twisted thread of cotton, silk, wool or mixture. PLUSH—Is of different grades and weaves. Cop yam (cotton and worsted) is for warp and woof. The plush piling is silk, cotton and mohair woven together in one single strand. The cop yarn, which furnishes the top and bottom body fabric, is woven together with the plush piling by means of a weaving machine, and a knife attachment separates the top and bottom warps or fabrics. Cop yarns come in skeins. In this process very little lint or flox is produced. The "tigers" or rough combers of plush, however, produce considerable silk flox which should be cleaned up daily. See Silk Plush."

@edinmassInteresting... In late high school and and my first two years of college I worked at a company called Anglo Fabrics. They're no longer in business but in the mid to late 70s they were recognized in encyclopedia's as the makers of the finest woolens and worsteds in the world. I worked in most departments with the owners and managers sons, so I'm very familiar with various types of wool and finishes. After reading your post I did a little research on Chase and plush silk. On your point of there being other materials in plush silk, you are correct. But silk is the main article in the weaving and finishing process for plush silk articles of that day. There is also often mohair, which as you know is very heavy and among the finest types of wool. Maybe there is also alpaca, but I did not see any reference to that. I remember when we processed the raw bales of the various varieties of wool at the mill in the die house, and then bagged it to be spun into yarn when we were finished with that stage, the mohair bundles were much heavier than any other type of wool. Sometimes there is also cotton in plush silk, but since these robes might get wet, cotton might be problematic. The process of manufacturing something of silk also incorporates tin, believe it or not, which increases its weight. The multi-stage process of making plush silk is one that is extremely complex, requiring specialized looms. I read that that the last loom that once produced plush silk is now destroyed. I doubt there would be a market for that material today, so any of these that are left will likely be the last ever made. Chase was actually the marketing arm of the first manufacturer of lap robes in the US, Sanford Mills in Maine. They manufactured plush carriage robes and furniture plush. L.C. Chase & Co. of Boston was their "selling agent", and they were also founding partners of Sanford Mills. They also represented a company near called Holyoke Plush Co. So I don't know which of those mills produced the silk plush but I'll find out more about it, and whether or not they had an agreement with Packard or any of the other major manufacturers as the OEM producer of their lap robe accessories. I'm checking into that now but haven't heard back yet. As you know, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine had some of the finest producers of high quality carriages in the US before most of it moved to the midwest, so it makes sense that many of the producers of components and accessories would also have been based here in the late 1800s and through the early days of automobile manufacturing when the "carriage" and "motor" aspects were still treted separately. I believe one of the original carriage makers for early US market Rolls Royce and Bentley automobiles was near you in Springfield, Mass.

@victorialynn2: Car valuations are somewhat of a black art. But there are some things to consider that can inform your decision. I'm in the research business, with a special emphasis on pricing and valuation, and have always had a natural curiosity to figure out what drives value of old cars. One of my former colleagues worked for a Boston bank that had special relationships with lots of high net worth individuals. They were advising on investments and loaning money to people that wanted to buy old cars and wanted to know definitively what the market looked like for these high risk investments. My colleague was asked (in the early 80s) to do a study on this subject. What he found was the "wave" of value was just that, a wave. It was tied to men, and what they dreamed about between the time they got their license and about 10 years after that. He found that to predict future value it is necessary to project forward almost an entire working life to the point of that guy's midlife crisis, and about 15 years after that. There you have the value wave, or in business parlance, the demand curve. It resembles a bell if you visualize it on a chart. There are literally hundreds of other value factors that affect what a car is actually worth when it sells (scarcity, popularity, condition, miles, provenance, etc.), but the main factor is that demand curve. I have owned more vehicles over the last 40 years than anyone I know that is not in the business of buying and selling cars. And I've been studying the markets for older car sales since 1998 when I was first turned onto this study. I've seen nothing to suggest that my colleague's conclusions are not accurate. I wish I hadn't sold that 1973 911 E Targa that I bought for $3,500 in 1990 before I figured all this out. I'd have a car that's worth $120K today, and the $90,000 in storage fees between then and now would have been worth it. That said, you now probably realize that most of the people that would be demanding your dad's car are now in a similar condition to your dad. Most of them are older with all sorts of other things to think about than buying cars that they dreamed about in high school or college in large numbers. The market has moved on to newer cars, with some outliers. So statistically, you are on the down-side of the value curve for your dad's car. I agree with the suggestions you see here from people that are say you should consider selling sooner rather than later - or to keep it and drive it for its sentimental value.

Here's that full page Packard ad from 1934...

I took a few more (better) pics of the lap robe I have. I also found the full page ad from the 1934 Packard catalog that it was listed in, along with the other "heating" accessories of the day. I discovered a tag that I never noticed on the robe before. It was manufactured by "Chase". @edinmass: Have you ever seen one of these Packard "double-face silk plush" lap robes before? This one is appears to be in perfect condition. I always wondered what it was made of and never even considered silk. I knew it wasn't wool, but always assumed that it was an exotic fur. It's not monogrammed, but I'm reasonably certain it is from a Packard owned by Dennie Boardman, or another member of his family, from Manchester, Mass.

I just found this thread because I was searching to try to figure out what my blanket was made out of. I too had heard that it was used as a rumble seat blanket. Some friends of mine had purchased part of an estate on the north shore near Boston and it was in a cedar closet. It's the two-sided black silk one to the right in your photo. It's 5 feet by 4 feet and must weigh more than 10 pounds. See pic...