Douglas Gilmore Brown

The limo in the foreground looks like it has a Maine license plate from 1936, 1937, or 1939. Can anyone ID the make and year?

Hi, Auburn seeker, Thanks for your input! I bought this at a country auction last Sunday. It had been in a Maine barn for over 50 years, and there was a heavy coating of grit and dried grease all over the the steering box. I thought it was from Hudson Terraplane, Studebaker, or another small maker at that time. I got home and spent 45 minutes removing all the crud, which revealed the Saginaw marking. A few days later, I got to thinking it probably was GM. Googling Cadillac, LaSalle, Olds, Pontiac, and finally Chevrolet, I discovered it is 1938 Chevrolet. A few day's of baptizing the center nut in a 50 -50 mixture of ATF and acetone made its removal easy, and likewise eased the removal of the steering wheel from the shaft. (My thanks to a fellow on this site who revealed this magic formula !). Checking eBay, I see that someone has sold a horn button like yours, but in worse shape, for a pretty decent sum. If it was for a 1936 or 1937 Dodge, I'd hang on to it; but probably will let the Chevy lovers on ebay have a shot at it.

I did some web searching, and it turns out that this was an optional steering wheel for 1938 Chevrolet cars.

This is a banjo steering wheel with Saginaw steering gear. Looks like late 1930's to early 1950's era. All the hard rubber or plastic on the wheel is gone.

Didn't Studebaker have an "S" of this style on their hubcaps in the 20's ?

This came with some 1949 Plymouth parts I got at a country auction. It was claimed to be 1935 Plymouth, BUT I seriously doubt it. It looks like there are small nail holes at edge of trunk opening, and at upper edge where the top framing would be. Plymouth had all steel bodied then. I'm guessing it is GM or some other wood framed body of that era.

That's an interesting grille guard. Was it original Mopar, or aftermarket?

Thanks for your help, paulrhd29nz ! I searched ebay for 1925 Hudson, and found eBay item number: 124315071450 under completed items It shows a very original 1925 Hudson. It went off auction on Sept 3, with no winning bids. It has lots of photos of this car; check them out and save them if you need references for your restoration 124315071450

Where in Maine are you? I am up in Freedom, Maine, and am interested.

This looks to be about 1920's vintage. The steering wheel is 18 inches in diameter. The housing of the steering gear has "38 GEMMER" cast into it, and stamped above this is the number 353047. 5911 is also cast into the housing, and 8814 is cast into the plate with the adjusting screw.

The trim ring looks like the one on a ca. 1926 Chevrolet headlight that I once had, but the black part is more rounded than mine was. So, I think drwatson in on the right trail, saying it is GM.

In Maine, we used to call these field bombers

I found this is a box of 1940 's Flathead Ford stuff I washed and polished lots of crud off it, and it looks pretty decent Chrome plating on brass, and probably European. Your help in identifying it will be much appreciated.

Note the nice New Hampshire license plate.

This sort of looks like Stutz, but might be aftermarket or another make of car

It appears to be stainless, and has FOMOCO script embossed. I suspect it is post 1980's. It is about 14 inches long

Maybe it is nautical ?

Probably, they're record photos for real estate tax valuation purposes. These could be a treasure trove of old car photos. They might also be good data source for old highway sign collectors.

THIS IS AN EMBALMING FLUID BOTTLE ! It was the Dodge Chemical Company, and I think they still are in business. I cleaned out the cellar of a funeral home that was sold and converted to a residence about 20 years ago, and I remember these bottles. No relation the the car people. I just checked ebay, and there is a pretty lively market for old embalming fluid bottles; I found a few like this one. Here is one like it, with a paper label.

Hi, , 30DodgePanel, Thanks for the picture! The springs and the axle look very similar. Would you know if the fenders sometime before 1940 would have been like mine?

Indian Motorcycle 1930 1940's sidecar wheels and fenders ? While this site is devoted to cars, not motorcycles, and especially not boats, please read on. I spotted an old trailer that looked to be made from motorcycle parts in 2002 while doing a construction job in Lamoine, Maine; which is just across the bay from Bar Harbor. Eventually I met the owner, who told me that it was a trailer for a tender for a Herreschoff yacht (which were abundant in Bar Harbor before the 1947 fire ). In response to my offer, he had no interest in selling it, or giving any more information about its origin. Four days ago, I got a call form an antique dealer to whom I had mentioned it to back then. The man who I talked to in 2002 had sold the property, and the mysterious Herreschoff trailer had been sent to a nearby junkyard; from whence we rescued it. Now, since Herreschoff was in Rhode Island, I suspect that the parts for this trailer were sourced from Indian, in Massachusetts. I am not even sure if it was built by Herreschoff, but it looks to be professionally manufactured. Anyway, the fenders look like they would have been for a sidecar. They are about 6 1/2 inches wide by 34 inches long. The wheels are 18 inches in diameter. Tires; One is marked MICHELIN 4.00 S 18 The other is marked IRC in diamond, INOUE GRAND HIGH SPEED 4.00 H 18 4 P.R. Springs are 1 1/4 inch wide, and 40 inches from center of the two "eyes". Distance from center of each spring on axle is 47 inches. Did Indian even make a trailer style axle, or would this have been made up from 2 sidecar axles? Pictures 1 and 2 are as it was retrieved from the junkyard; Picture 3 is after disassembly and a little hammer work.

I have one of this "MAINE T" format that was marked "1937" on its back. On the other hand, I have one of this same format that was on a 1956 Plymouth wagon that my father bought in the summer of 1959. I think that this same format was used throughout this era. And, I suspect that the numbers might have run up to 999-999, and then began again at 100-000. There are variations on the type of cardboard between various plates, indicating different production runs. It's really hard to date one of these unless the original owner marked the year in it. Occasionally one turns up with the temporary registration certificate stapled or taped to it. If you found one of them with an original batch of 1930's plates, it would be safe to call it of that era. Maine went to State Prison - produced license plates in 1936; I suspect these temporary plates began at the same time. You mentioned that it was with a batch of 1930's car magazines. What years were they? I have a 1917 Maine temporary, in the same format as the 1917 steel plates. It has "1917" printed right on it. But, the next 20 years are a vast unknown.

With the MAINE T logo, and the rubber stamped dates (stamps supplied by the State, and applied by the dealer), I'd say 1950s. These were mostly put on new cars, or fairly new used cars sold by dealers. As time passed, the dealers lost or wore out the rubber stamps, and used old style "Listo" wax crayon pens, or new - fangled "Magic Marker" or "Marks A Lot" felt tipped markers. My father managed a stationery store in Belfast, Me, and I recall the dealers buying Marks A Lot markers for their 10 day plates. Earlier temporary plates were for 7 days. By I earlier, I mean early 1950's and earlier. There are a lot of styles of these over the years; occasionally one finds one with the year on it, which makes better classification possible. Not worth much to license plate collectors, but a challenging collectible.