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1930 6 cyl Sedan in the barn since 1961


Guest Katep

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Everyone on here seems really knowledgeable so I figure it can't hurt to ask. My parents are beginning to thin down their possessions and my dad has a 1930 Peerless six cylinder Sedan among the items he is thinking of selling this summer. He has owned it since 1961, I believe it is very original and has been stored in a barn since 1961. I guess my question is that on the Peerless Hearse thread there was a comment "As always a well sorted ebay auction with patience will yield top dollar." I'm trying to figure out where the best place to list this for sale (to get a fair price) might be? Would people suggest ebay? And, does anyone know what "well sorted" means in that context?

Thanks for any help.

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Katep,

Thank you for writing something about your parents' 1930 Peerless on the Peerless Forum, and for using the AACA Forums for the first time. Maybe your family has a Peerless none of us have heard of, or maybe it's well-known. I have been working on a record of all remaining Peerless cars for 8 years. I don't know all of them out there, but have been able to put together a list of 351 cars & trucks supported by some kind of evidence. Three NY six-cylinder Peerless owners that come to mind are Peebles, Buckner and Howk. Any connection? I talked to one of them on the phone from Oneida who had a green 6-61 Victoria Coupe(2 doors, with a back seat, and with a small built in trunk at the rear) with red wire wheels in Nov, 2009. If you would use the PM function here on the Forums and send me your dad's name and address, the engine serial number(found on side of engine), body ser. #(found on firewall when you open the hood), color, # of doors, body style, and say what side of the car the carburetor is on(l.s./r.s.). Extra bonus points if you notice a coachbuilder's tag* anywhere(usually on firewall). My list is called Known Peerless Automobiles In Existence, and any of the above 8 descriptions will make that more accurate and keep the identities of cars untangled.

The Peerless 6-80 Hearse was owned by someone in WA. He put it for sale here on the Peerless Forum with some photos of current condition and someone bought it soon after. A buyer from OH was interested, who was in the process of restoring another Mod. 6-80, and may very well have bought it. Not that the Peerless Forum is a hotbed of buy & sell activity...the AACA Buy /Sell Forum is better for that. I buy things like 100-year-old Peerless magazine ads on e-bay, $3 to $30 generally, and have never tried to sell a car there.

Someone I know sold a '29 Peerless 6-61 Sedan at an ebay auction recently. He had a reliable unit with near-perfect paint, spent a lot to repair some mechanical problems, and sold it in the middle of winter. It wasn't so much that it was in good condition, but that he had pro-quality still photographs and two Youtube videos of the car right there on the ebay ad. Better photo coverage than 90% of the ads for high dollar Classics I've seen. You could feel like you took a test drive without having to go to Bedford Hills, NY, where the car was. To be fair, the car's obvious driveability and appearance may have sold it, and a mechanical check probably happened, too. You could also try the auction route, advertising in Hemmings Motor News, and sale areas at antique car shows. Personally, I think the Horseless Carriage Club of America's online classified ads would be a great one to try. They get a lot of viewing. Has to be a pre-1942 car. Photo ads cost some, but non-photo ads are low-cost or free.

I hope that this has been of some help. Thank you for any data you are able to send! A 1930 Peerless Six is a bit of a rare bird. Technically, Peerless went to all-straight-8 engines for their last 3 model years, 1930-32, but a few hundred 6-61A and a few dozen 6-81 Peerlesses were sold(I'm just guessing at the numbers) as 1930s. Peerless, "America's Oldest Builder of Fine Cars", had included Eights in their lineup for fifteen years by 1930. Cars that were really more of a 1929 were called 1930s after September 1st, 1929...but there were still a few manufactured after 1/1/30(I've seen ads from the Erie, PA Peerless dealer in February, 1930 saying the "conservatively priced Model Six-61 was still in production"). Also, if a 1929 Peerless wasn't sold by a dealer until the next year, the state would title it as a 1930 in many cases.

---------Jeff

P.S.: To use the PM function,(assuming you are signed-in to the aaca forums) go to my profile name(jeff_a) on the upper left-hand corner of this post, click on it and then go to "Private Message" to send a message.

* ones to look for are: Murray, Budd, Peerless Body, Raulang, Hayes, Springfield, and Weymann...see "Peerless Coachbuilders" thread

Edited by jeff_a
added more model year info (see edit history)
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Wow! Jeff, Thank you for all of that information and your suggestions. I appreciate it. I doubt that it is one already on your list so I will try to get answers to all of your questions. The barn is a bit snowed in right now, but I will try to get out and take a peek and maybe some photos. Once the snow melts and my parents return from Florida maybe I can even get Dad to get it out of the barn and take some video like you suggest. From my memory all I can tell you is that it has wooden spokes and is blue and, I think, black. lol..not much. I didn't pay much attention as a little girl and it always seemed big and spooky. I'll ask Dad for more details and get back to you.

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Thanks for your help, too! I'll go ahead and list the car on my list of surviving Peerlesses. If you send me an address I could mail you a 1-pg info sheet for you or your parents to fill out, but via the Forum would be fine, too.

I looked at KPAIE and there are ten 1930/1931 Peerless Sixes listed. Quite a few for a car that technically doesn't exist! Not that you have a Lear Jet and are going to go look at them, but here are a couple:

  • black 1930 6-81 Sedan, Czech Republic
  • cream and maroon 1930 6-81 Coupe, Indiana in 2002
  • red 1930 6-61A Deluxe Sedan, Denmark
  • blue 1930 6-61A Deluxe Sedan, Australia(4 nice photos on Peerless Forum "What is this car worth" thread...last comments on 9/5/12)
  • green 1930 6-61A Deluxe Sedan, National Road/Zane Grey Museum, Norwich, OH

 

I've noticed the 1930 6-61As and 6-81s tend to have side cowl vents and the '29 6-61 and 6-81 do not. Somewhere I have the actual serial numbers marking the cut-off between 1929 and 1930...at least for those 2 models.

Like I said, I don't know much about selling cars on e-bay from having done so myself. I'm sure there's an art to it. Peerless cars do not as a rule conform to any ideas on set prices. There are about 20 for sale right now. I've seen auction prices from $2,750 to $469,000. That's the difference between a Condition #5-(Beverly Hillbillies condition) '27 Peerless turned into a pickup, and a 1910 Brewster-bodied Mod. 29 Peerless Victoria Landau(once owned by billionaire heiress Doris Duke) in impeccable original condition with impeccable provenance.

 

Edited by jeff_a (see edit history)
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  • 2 weeks later...

Be interesting to see what the car turns out to be. Logic tells me it will be a Mod. 6-61 or 6-81. The Blizzard of 2015 will probably have to go away before the lady and her dad can even get to the barn. As you know, the word "Barn" in a for sale ad adds money to an antique car price these days.

Might as well guess, since this snow thing will last forever: I'll say an Obsidian Blue Peerless 6-81 with rear spare and original mohair upholstery with the spinning propellers design, and an accessory heater. That would have been $1,595 + tax, delivery & accessories($1,395 if it was a 1929 6-61). Dual sidemounts & wire wheels would have been a $225 option for 1929($150 for d/s/m & steel wheels). There are some photos of a 6-81 Sedan here on the Peerless Forum "Peerless For Sale Department" thread* that are nice.



*On Post #101, please go to the highlighted "theoldwheel" part and once on that site check out the 1 1/2-minute video of the restored 1929 6-81 Peerless. Now THAT'S some good marketing of a car. Don't worry....they already sold it, so watching the film won't make you go out and buy it!

Edited by jeff_a
correction on d/s/m (see edit history)
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Guest Katep

Imperial62 thank you for your bountiful information as well! Now I understand what "well sorted" means. The snow is beginning to melt! It will be best for me to wait until May for my dad to come back so he can go out with me and tell me all the details (I really don't know much about what I'm looking at) which I will pass to Jeff and I will try to get some photos to share at least and I will discuss with him what path he wants to take. I remember it does have the louvers on the engine cover, mohair seats (scratchy) and the spare. We are almost half way through March so May will be here soon. I really appreciate the information and opinions everyone has shared. Thank you.

Don't doubt it has really been in the barn nice and dry all these years. The house was a tobacco farm in the mid-late 1800's and it has some really nice big barns. He used to have a Chevy Nomad that sat next to the Peerless. That was a neat car too.

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Katep,

Really nice of you to check in again, and glad to hear that the snow is melting.

I forgot to mention that those two most likely models can be instantly recognized by their hood louvers. The 1929-only "6-61" has horizontal louvers on the hood-sides, like a 1929-30 Marmon "Roosevelt", 1929 Marmon "68", or a 1928-30 Stutz "Blackhawk". The "6-81", also a '29 model, has vertical louvers, like on a 1930 Ford Model "A", or most cars of the time. Peerless didn't make it easy for us by throwing continuations of the '29s into the mix --- both late-manufacture and titled-in-'30 cars. To me, that's what makes the antique car world fun, kind of like a mystery novel or cracking the Japanese code in WWII. If your dad's Peerless is not a "6-61", "6-61A", or "6-81"...there is a tiny chance it could be something else, but the serial numbers will tell us that.

Here's a photo of the "6-61" in Mason Thrall's collection in CT for 40 years, then sold by Joe Todaro of NY to a new owner(this is the car I mentioned on Post #2, 3rd paragraph):

post-49853-14314301192_thumb.jpgphoto by J. Todaro

Kind of hard to see the details. Here's a better picture of a "Six-61" at a car show, plus one of those Roaring Twenties illustrations of the same model:

post-49853-14314301612_thumb.jpg

You can buy a copy of the B&W photo from Peerless Motor Car Club member Walter Miller, it comes as a 16" x 20" poster for $14.95 on e-Bay from autolit.com . No idea where the car show is or who the couple in the Peerless are. Maybe it's the 2001 Peerless Meet in Cleveland. The color ad is from the "6-61" when introduced, photo of ad by W. Miller.

The fourth car I mentioned in Post #4, a blue "6-81" Sedan from WI that went to Australia, has some good pics here on the Peerless Forum already.

post-49853-143143012659_thumb.jpgphoto by T. Dommer

A joke I tell people is that if a Peerless shows up and nobody knows what year it is, it's a '29. Because they survive in the greatest numbers of all 32 model years: about 60 (not counting the one's listed as '30s and '31s, but technically '29s). That still doesn't make any Peerless a common car. One plus is that if you take one to a car event, you'll be unique, with the only Peerless there, usually. There IS a concours d'elegance and series of auctions going on right now at Amelia Island, FL with three: a 1912 Model "60-Six" Runabout, a 1926 "6-80" 2-Door Sedan and a 1931 "Master Eight" Sedan. The first sold March 12th, the second and third were to be at the concours. There is a recent set of pictures of the '26 on the "Peerless For Sale Department" thread here, restored by Pistorius Restorations(as well as pics of a 1930 Peerless "Standard Eight").

----Jeff

post-49853-143143014919_thumb.jpg

Edited by jeff_a
Added 2 model numbers & another Six-61 photo. (see edit history)
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  • 2 months later...
Guest Katep

They're back! Here is a photo. Sorry it's not so good. I can't really get in there well yet. Dad said he will get it out of the barn soon.

 

--Jeff, I will get him working on all that info for the registry you requested.post-149254-0-17610700-1432254959_thumb.

 

 

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Hi Katep,

 

Thank you for dropping by again and going to the trouble of posting a photograph. Your Dad's Peerless is a Model Six-81, like the one in the third photo in post #8 above. About 2,900 6-81s were made. They had 66 h.p. Continental engines with 7-main-bearing crankshafts and 248 cubic inches of displacement.

 

I heard from someone two weeks ago who found another Peerless 6-81 in New York, and he discovered that the car serial number was on a metal plate, attached to the body sill, in the front passenger area (passenger side), under the carpet: a different place than I said to look in post #2 above.

 

Jeff in Idaho

Edited by jeff_a (see edit history)
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello again Katep,

 

I'm going to guess that the car serial number on your family's Peerless is between C812,901 and C813,651. Without going into a long story...it has something to do with the side cowl vents on the hood of your car. If you would like me to tell you the names of the 1929 Peerless factory colors, or what the functions of some of the "cockpit controls" are, I would be happy to do that, too. 

 

At first glance, in the small photo, it looks like the Peerless is white and black. The fenders would normally be black, but there seems to be a little bit of blue sheen to the hood and door when you click on the photo and enlarge it.

 

You're lucky to live in one of the places with a lot of Peerlesses, rare as they are. Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, Canada, Colorado and California have more than average numbers of them, too.

 

Jeff in Idaho

Edited by jeff_a (see edit history)
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  • 2 months later...
Guest Katep

Finally! Some promised pictures! It appears that the car was green originally. It's now seen it's first taste of sunlight in many, many years. Dad is still working on re attaching the original parts he has stored away. He even has the original top in a tub so it can be used as a pattern to make a new one. 

 

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It's good to see the photographs. It is a little hard to make out what the finish color of the body was, but the green paint on the door edge looks like a clue***. A lot of people overlook an unusual thing your photo shows on the Body Serial No. Plate(seen in 9th picture, below the steering wheel pic). Notice that the 4th serial number is only 5-digit: modern patent #s are much higher, even ones from the 1920s. This one is from 1869. Another nice thing is that Door Serial Number Plate you included in the 10th picture. I'll enter that in KPAIE along with the other data. The upholstery looks a little better than I expected, in the one glimpse of it visible. In the nice closeup of the radiator insignia, the design is one I haven't seen before...but I've never seen a 1929/30 Mod. Six-81 in person. Thanks for getting your family's rare Peerless out in the sun and showing us what it looks like!

 

*** Computers and monitors are really good at changing the appearance of colors from real, but looking closely at your photos, I see dark blue or black, butterscotch, primer red and primer gray, in addition to the green on the door edges. Peerless factory colors for 1929 that intersect with these are Obsidian Blue, Amber Brown, Buckingham Brown, Griotte Green and Opal Green.

Edited by jeff_a (see edit history)
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