gwells

I received the museum's letter yesterday and read it tonight. For me, a few questions arise from the museum's letter. 1) Three acres in Hershey, PA, is valued at a million dollars? Maybe I am out of touch with land values, but that seems excessively high to me. In certain areas, of course, but in Hershey, PA? 2) Exactly what was the reason Tom Cox was voted off the musuem BoD, "under section 2.6.2 of [the museum's] bylaws." Not going to bother to research the museum's bylaws, but seems logical he was removed for "cause." Anyone know what that cause is? I have met Tom, and know of his activities in other fields, and would be surprised to learn he was removed for clearly objectionable actions. 3) Why does the museum now have access to the AACA's membership mailing list to enable them to mail me and the other AACA members?

Larry, no cord was discovered in the garage that was being cleaned out where the tool was found.

I did think of a cloth cutter when my friend Sam sent me the pics. 30Dodge, I flipped through the patent drawings and most of the cloth cutters use circular blades and often have some sort of feed mechanism to pull the cloth through the cutter, in the manner of a sewing machine. The jigsaw like action is going to shred a normal cloth. Leather, leatherette, vinyl, heavy canvas, and similar materials would have enough stiffness that the jigsaw cut would work and so no feed mechanism would be needed other than the operator pushing it along. That's my guess anyway...

Trying to help a friend in NY who has been helping clear out a late friend's garage for the widow, where this unusual power tool was found. So far, no one has any idea what it is and lots of people have been asked. The deceased for many years did automotive paintwork and customizing (including upholstery, it is believed) and there is a chance that this tool was used in some aspect of that, but that is just a stab in the dark. It may have nothing to do with cars at all. But there are a lot of very sharp people here on these forums and perhaps someone knows what this item was used for. There is no cord, so the tool can't be operated. The blade is concave on the cutting edge, sort of a hook, and seems to operate in the manner of a jigsaw. Whatever was being cut couldn't have been very thick. Note that the 'shoe' has an airplane wing shape, with the thinnest section at the front. Note roller and ball bearing on underside of shoe.The switch above the lamp is assumed to turn it on. The side adjusting wheel seems to lower a pin or stud that follows behind the blade. The switch-like tab near the base of the cast upper handle looks like it used to move but it is frozen in place now. The long aluminum contoured trigger on the grip operates some function, perhaps a clutch of some sort connecting the action to a constantly spinning inernal motor. The knurled lever on the butt of the tool seems like it locked the power cord to the tool so it couldn't pull out as the tool was moved. There is what seems to be another adjustment screw on the butt of the handle. There has to be an internal motor but it couldn't take up much space, so it is unlikely to be particualrly powerful, suggesting that whatever was being cut didn't require a lot of force. Seems obvious that this tool was to be taken to the material or item being cut. The tool has no marking of any kind. The round-head screws suggest '30s or '40s to me, as does the bulb shape. The tool doesn't look homemade, mostly because of the couple places where rivets were used, but it is possible. Anyone have a clue what this thing is?

I do that regularly, actually. And as I said, "in most cases." Certainly not every one. And your info actually supports my point: your name is not the problem, it's the other info that can be tied to it. And freezing one's credit as we are able to do here in the US pretty much locks the barn.

One's full name is not a very specific data point and in most cases is not even close to being unique. There are dozens and dozens of people in the world with my exact first and last names, and a surprising number with with exact first name, last name, and middle initial. In fact there quite a few with my exact first, middle, and last names. The problem is when names get tied to specific SSN, bank acct, credit card, and other financial numbers, as happens depressingly often with data breaches at banks, stores, and other such entities. Havng one's real name be visible at a free discusion forum like this one carries virtually no risk and in the 12+ years I have been running my hobby forum (with 8,000+ members), not a single instance of harm due to our policy has ever been reported to us. FWIW, I heard some astonishing numbers recently regarding how many times someone will be recorded on video survelliance during a single short trip in many city. Can't recall the exact figures but they were not in the single digits nor even in the low double digits.

As an addition to my post #29 above, at my hobby forum members are required to expose their real names (either as their 'display name' or in their signature) in order to be granted 'full permissions' allowing themr to make posts and to utilize the private messaging system. Yes, it's an unusual requirement on an internet forum, but it has generated a lot of positives. Members are a lot more civil and better behaved when they aren't allowed to hide behind an alias. Are there people who refuse to show their real names? Of course, but it's in the minority and the full members strongly support the policy, which has been in place since day one.

I jokingly call Facebook the "internet for the attention-deficient." It certainly appeals to those who grew up on a steady diet of 30-second sound bites. Its primary 'hook' is that it is optimized for access from a smartphone, which is the only 'computer' many young people use today. Its big negatives for me are that it is largely uncensored and incredibly repetitive. There are some posts I've seen more than a hundred times over a period of a few years. For that reason, I find it wastes a lot of time scrolling through the stuff I keep seeing. And just try to find something you saw yesterday or even a few hours ago, if you have a large list of Facebook 'friends.' Facebook posts reach a huge number of eyeballs, but the majority of it is to people who have no interest in collector cars. It's great if you're selling a product that appeals to a significant percentage of the Facebook population, but otherwise it doesn't work well to target smaller interest groups. I've run a very active niche hobby forum (which uses the same IP Board software as here) for over a dozen years and I have come to believe that Facebook is a usable way to 'drive' or 'attract' people to forums like this one and hopefully to AACA membership. "... the forum is a much better format for conversation and creation of a knowledge-base." Absolutely. Facebook IMO works very poorly as an archive or repository of knowledge.

Lump, I've been intrigued by this mascot as well and I would be embarrassed to tell you how much time I've wasted searching the web to see if I could determine who made it and when. It's pretty darn rare, that's for certain. And I think it almost has to be an accessory mascot, as opposed to a factory piece. The book you saw it in: where were you and when was this, if you recall? Swap meet, someone's house, a museum, a bookstore, a library... If you can remember the year, it will set a date before which the book had to have been published. There simply aren't that many books on automotive mascots. Has anyone who owns a copy of W. C. Williams' "Motoring Mascots of the World" checked to see if this mascot is shown within? One other possibility is that this was not originally made as an automotive mascot but rather adopted for that use, although that's probably unlikely. Have you ever separated the cap from the mascot? Can you post a picture of the bottom of the cap, showing how the mascot and cap are joined? The leering face base looks a bit off-center in the cap to me in the pics. Time to get serious here... LOL.

Here's another picture of a Leach that took me a few years to ID.

Is that father Don in the bowtie, West? I've never seen a pic of him looking so young...

It's certably possible. Would have to see a rear view to compare the unusual turtledeck design to be sure.

41 Su8, I don't have much disagreement with your last post, but I believe in Packard parlance in this timeframe, there were production bodies, full-custom bodies, and semi-custom bodies. The last were typically bodies that were proposed to Packard by coachbuilders and if chosen by the company, they were supplied to Packard in small runs, say 10-30 bodies in white, to be stored and then finished and trimmed as orders for them were received, sometimes over a couple of years. Lincoln was another company who operated in this manner and there were probably others. It would be nice if Antique Automobile editor West Peterson, whose Packard knowledge far exceeds mine, or Walt Gosden, probably the expert regarding the coachbuilt era, would chime in to this thread.

To my eye, every discernible feature on the bodies in the photo in my original post matches the Packard coupe Dave Mellor shows in his post #16. The closeness of the lower corners of the trunk lid to the body sides is nearly unique in my experience; I've never seen another car that had anything similar as best I can remember nor I have encountered anything similiar in my searching. Being a Holbrook body, it certainly possible this body design was sold to other builders. As best I can tell, the pic came to Getty via the photo archives of the UK firm Popperfoto, which Getty describes thusly: "Popperfoto - historic European rights-managed images. Founded by Czech photojournalist Paul Popper in 1934, Popperfoto is one of the UK's oldest and largest independently-owned image libraries." If it was captioned outside of the US, I am even more convinced that it is misattributed.

Kind of an interesting side note to this photo... It was used today in a Facebook post made by the someone connected with the Early V-8 Ford Foundation Museum in Auburn, IN (a wonderful small museum BTW which I visited last year) and I posted a brief note that the cars shown weren't Fords. The poster replied that indeed they were Ford bodies and claimed they were from "Ford archives 44, 10385107, Detroit, Michigan, USA, circa 1927, A group of men working on an assembly line of car bodies at the Ford motor plant in Detroit." Based on my own research, and knowledge of Ford Model T and A, and on the input of you sharp guys, I am convinced the photo is misattributed as Ford bodies at Getty. I'd appreciate hearing opinions from some of you other folks, whom I know from long monitoring of this subforum to be sharper than tacks when it comes to knowledge of automotive history. I don't really have a dog in this hunt, other than believing with your help we got the ID right in this thread. Plus I've never seen a Ford with a body like those shown.

41 Su8, thank you for your info! The only picture I could find of that building (which was razed in 1988) is this, on the cover of a Universal Match employee magazine in 1944. Here's slightly enlarged and sharpened cut from the image: To my eye, the locations of the rotating portion of the windows, and the number of panes in each one, match the pics shown in the first post. So I believe you are right: that is the Holbrook plant. I called the Fort Lauderdale Automotive Museum and Rose confirmed the car shown above does indeed have a Holbrook body, as the door sill carries the Holbrook trim almost always seen on bodies they made. Slam dunk on this one, guys. Thanks for everyone's interest and assistance.

It's too late today, but I'll try to give the museum a call tomorrow when they're open to see if they have an evidence or documentation regarding the Holbrook connection. Call me crazy (like my ex does) but I love this kind of historical research.

Thank you, Dave! As best I can see, it is a perfect match. Mystery solved. So that factory pic is likely at the Holbrook plant. Suggests why it was so difficult to locate a matching body. Do you know the location of that car, i.e. museum or private collection?

Only rear view I could find was in an ad, where the image was an illustration rather than a picture. But it did have the sharp edge on the turtle deck as show in the IP, as well as the other identifying features So I think you guys have nailed it. 1922-23 Packard coupe bodies seems to be the correct ID. Anyone know someone who actually owns a 1922-23 Packard coupe like this? Not much shows up via internet search.

Yep, that's pretty close, based on what can been seen from that angle. I'll search for a rear view.

Fordrodsteven, I'm still seeing numerous differences between your pic and the unknown bodies, I hate to say.

Not at all. I appreciate you wanting to help.

Hudsy, attached is the car you must have been looking at and again, close but not a match to my eye. Look at the distance between the lower corner of the trunk lid and the side of the body, plus that crisp line on the edge of the unknown's turtledeck is almost horizontal when it joins the main part of the body. And no curved corner at the bottom rear corner of the curved window on the Stude.

Trimacar, I was looking later in time than late teens, but have now checked 1918-19 Cadillacs 'victoria coupes' and close, but no cigar. More traditional rounded turtledeck edges and square lower rear corners in the side windows. Good guess and thanks for pointing me earlier.

Haven't been able to match the body with anything GM yet. And haven't found any coupe or opera coupe with that large a rear window. Most are smaller and/or quite a bit more rectangular.