Jump to content

Anyone see the Stanley Steamer stuff on Antiques Road Show last night??


keiser31

Recommended Posts

Antiques Road Show has some really great stuff and last night was a treat. Some relative of the Ormond Beach record holder Stanley Steamer driver (Fred Marriott) brought some photos and medals/ribbons to get appraised. There was also a book of Stanley Steamer records from warranty work throughout the years up through 1923. It had serial numbers and information on each car. It was fabulous!! The stuff really ought to be displayed in a museum for all to view.

post-37352-143141741267_thumb.jpg

Edited by keiser31 (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw that and said to my wife, "That's somethng the Stanley Steamer Club should own". The writer was the head of Service for the company during those years, what a treasure. I hope the family would allow it to be copied for the record.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was yelling the same thing!

If anyone out there would like to spend some time yelling at your computer monitor, here's a link to the show in question: Video: Boston Hour 2 | Watch Antiques Roadshow Online | PBS Video

The Stanley collection begins approximately 27 minutes into the show. The collection is owned by the granddaughter of Fred Marriott, driver of the world speed record Stanley in 1906. The log book I spoke of is not of one car, it is a log of the first years of Stanley's production. It lists each car built, buyer, specifications, etc. It's most visible at 31:24 into the video.:cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The book was kept to provide information for warranty service. It contains only the car's serial number, model number, and date of delivery. Unfortunately there is no other information about the cars, nor any information about owners. The owner of the book considers it a priceless family heirloom, intended to stay in the family in future generations.

Kelly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the family treasures it, they should keep it. That said, a polite approach to them, asking if it could be photographed, would seem appropriate. Most automotive historians are interested in the information, not the artifact, and this would allow the information to be circulated without taking the chance of damaging the original book. Digital photographs taken without a flash are now the preferred method of copying documents. I've done it in both the US and the British National Archives many times. Usually the archives even provide adjustable mounts for the camera to make it easier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The best approach for supporting research, and one that I'd be happy to implement personally and at my expense. However, the owner is extremely sensitive to misuse of the information, in this era of assembled Stanleys, and makes sure that no one but herself and her descendants will ever be permitted to look at the information in the book.

Kelly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Mochet

That's odd. Hard to see any "misuse" of such documents would affect the Stanley legacy in any way. The Ford, Duesenberg and other archives are available to the benefit of historians and collectors everywhere. I hope they someday reconsider.

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with Mochet... it would seem that having real information available would be the sort of thing that the tricksters out there would be terrified of. What nefarious purpose could be served by knowing that car xxxx was delivered on such-and-such a date? It would be useful for dating cars for the London-Brighton but I can't see what other purpose it could serve. I'm pretty skeptical of priceless too. Its very interesting to a very tiny segment of the brass car collecting world which, in itself, is tiny in comparison to the car collecting community which is tiny in comparison to the population. We tend to think "everyone" shares our interests because many of our friends do but thats a fools paradise. About 99.99999% of the population could not care less. Priceless suggests big money collectors fighting to own it... I don't see that at all. Yes, its very special and Stanley's are desirable cars but what are there, a few hundred people who even know what its about?

I deal with this sort of stuff every day (in another field) and one of the problems is people who have gotten totally unrealistic notions of what things are "worth" from the Antiques Road Show. Its certainly entertaining, but not much more. As often as not, the "expert" isn't one at all and has zero knowledge of the collecting base for an individual artifact. One item comes to mind... appraised for a good 10 times its absolute maximum value to the tiny handful of collectors, all on its similarity to another artifact which is similar and 10 times more desirable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually there are people in the Stanley world who would pay considerably more than the estimate provided by the Roadshow. But it's priceless to her because she knows she won't sell it. I was actually a bit surprised that she exposed it to the public in this way.

Stanleys have been assembled from scratch since the early 1960s, and for many years other holders of this book would be queried "Can you give me a serial number from that book that was delivered on the same model as the car I'm building?" Once such a serial number was revealed and installed, and 20 or 30 years went by, there's even less possibility of determining whether the car is a recent assembly, or mostly came out of the factory on the same day.

There are a bunch of niggling problems brought on by this kind of behavior, like multiple cars with the same number (one number is actually on 3 different cars right now), and the eventual exhaustion of all numbers associated with a popular model. The muscle car, Model K, is a good example. It had the largest powerplant produced, in the smallest body. There are probably 3 that can be considered factory survivors, and at least 13 others on the road. I know of 3 more under construction right now. And a total of 26 K's were originally built by the factory.

But I think the biggest issue is this. As is certainly true with other makes, there have been some Stanley owners/builders who feel that if people can be deceived into thinking that a car is "factory", the car will bring them more money.

The whole situation irritates the current holder of the book, and she doesn't care to allow the information in there to support any more people applying serial numbers to cars that don't have them.

There would be ways to manage & acknowledge recent provenance of cars, which in the case of Stanleys are generally outstanding technical and craftsmanship achievements. Some ways are going on right now with other makes. But they generally involve a central body of some kind, and Stanley people can be pretty stubborn individualists. And, the process has been going on for so long that the horse is pretty much out of the barn. It's hard to see how the situation could be improved.

Kelly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At some point, this book will find its way into another caretaker's (dare I say owner's) hands. No one lives forever, and, there is certainly no guarantee that the current owner's children and/or heirs will find any sentimental value in this item. Likely it will find its way to a live or internet auction where the buying public will determine its true value.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...