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Has anyone ever seen or heard of a "Dan Patch" vehicle?


Larry W

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Back in the early sixties, knowing that I was a budding car enthusiast, an elderly neighbor gave me a sales brochure from the teens or twenties for "Dan Patch" automobiles. As I recall, they were available in various body styles of the time, coupe, roadster, phaeton, truck, etc,. After perusing the pages for a while, in my youthful exuberance, (read that stupidity), I decided to try my hand at automotive re-design with a then new on the scene "magic marker". Mag wheels, blowers, and zoomies, actually detracted from the appearance of the vehicles and I ended up discarding the brochure when commanded by my mother to clean my room. I've never seen or heard of Dan Patch since, and today, of course, I wonder what would that sales brochure be worth?

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According to a 1972 "Minnesota History" publication by the MN. Historical Society, DAN PATCH & SAVAGE "Several cars were sold locally under these two names by the M. W. Savage Factories. The Savage family owned and promoted the famous harness racing horse Dan Patch. In April 1910, it was reported that the entire output of an Indiana factory was taken by the Savage firm, and national distribution of the car was to be operated from Minneapolis." The Dan Patch "Torpedo" is shown as a sketch.

Is there an example out there today? Not sure, but the report gives us a hint that they were sold locally. Good luck.

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The brass era automobile maker Dan Patch was founded in Minneapolis in 1911. The company was owned by Savage and was one of 16 manufacturers in Minnesota at the time. This operation came to an end when the Ford Motor Company began its assembly operations in St. Paul.[2][3]

In addition, Dan Patch was the subject of the 1949 motion picture The Great Dan Patch starring Dennis O'Keefe and Gail Russell

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You are right, it probably was a rare brochure. As to value ,probably not all that high. Most of the expensive Lit. is expensive because someone owns the car and wants the Lit. to go with it. There are some people who are purely Lit. collectors , but there are so many different makes {10,000 +} pre war alone that most "orphan" brochure's sell in the $100.00 or less range. There are only a few collectors that have truly vast collections, and they are probably the only people that can tell you just how rare your brochure was. Some optimistic promoters printed thousands of brochures for a handful of cars actually produced, and some eg. early Buick printed realitively few despite large sales.

Greg in Canada

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  • 3 weeks later...

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