Buick Heritage Alliance Orders

[Brian_Heil]

Should you order from the BHA, be prepared for a 4 week wait.  Glad the car was not hanging on a hoist waiting for the information.

 

No special order, item off the menu, click and order.  Credit card fine.  Last I checked, I don't live on a remote island somewhere or the Yukon Territory (no disrespect to Br. Thiller). 

 

Maybe we are all now suffering from Amazon Delivery 'Expectatciousis'?  Or maybe just me?

Edited May 14, 2018 by Brian_Heil (see edit history)

[Terry Wiegand]

Brian, please enlighten us here - what was it that you are trying to get from them?  Sounds like it could be of a technical sort.  Maybe someone here on the forums could help you out.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

Edited May 14, 2018 by Terry Wiegand
GRAMMAR (see edit history)

[Brian_Heil]

A Buick Owners manual. 

 

Broadening my horizons about early Buicks. 

 

Just interested, wanted something to read. 

 

I will admit it was an impulse purchase and I did not pay attention to price or shipping.

 

Emailed BHA after 2 weeks asking 'did you forget about me?'  (especially after my credit card statement came and I saw what they changed).

 

The reply was, 'no, most orders take 3 to 4 weeks'.

 

Sigh.

 

My concern, someone in real need of info. might want to know the orders are not very quick.

 

Now, with that said, if I was in Buick Info Jail, you would be on my short list of who first to call.

 

Operator, how much for a person to person call to Doo Dah?

 

[Larry Schramm]

What manual specifically were you looking for?  There are some of us that have quite a few pieces of literature laying around.

[Morgan Wright]

I got a reprint of the picture parts catalogue for E 6 cylinder from BHA. I had originals of E 4 cyl and D 6 cyl, and H/K of 6 but really wanted the one  for E 6 cyl.

 

Yeah it took 4 weeks and it was a decent print job but not nearly as clear as originals ones are. And not clear enough to make me stop looking for the original.

 

And it was real expensive!

[Spinneyhill]

On 5/15/2018 at 6:02 PM, Morgan Wright said:

not nearly as clear as originals ones are

I think the reason for this is aliasing. The original photographs etc. were printed on a screen before adding to the manuscript. When a photocopier is used, the dots in the scan don't often line up with the dots in the original photograph so there is often an aliasing effect - you get bands of dark and light across the image. The images in manuals have less of this but are still furry, I think because of lack of contrast in the originals and in the copying process and also because there is probably some interpolation of detail going on between the original dots (pixels).

Edited May 16, 2018 by Spinneyhill (see edit history)

[Morgan Wright]

3 hours ago, Spinneyhill said:

I think the reason for this is aliasing. The original photographs etc. were printed on a screen before adding to the manuscript. When a photocopier is used, the dots in the scan don't often line up with the dots in the original photograph so there is often an aliasing effect - you get bands of dark and light across the image. The images in manuals have less of this but are still furry, I think because of lack of contrast in the originals and in the copying process and also because there is probably some interpolation of detail going on between the original dots (pixels).

 

I was very disappointed by the contrast and clarity of the pics, compared to the clarity of pics in the originals. Very much worse than the original. I think the technology of printing in 1918 should not exceed that of printing in 2018.

[Spinneyhill]

3 minutes ago, Morgan Wright said:

I think the technology of printing in 1918 should not exceed that of printing in 2018. 

It doesn't. But I think that is how it was done and a dot over dot scan in your photocopier doesn't necessarily hit the old dots!

[Morgan Wright]

5 minutes ago, Spinneyhill said:

It doesn't. But I think that is how it was done and a dot over dot scan in your photocopier doesn't necessarily hit the old dots!

 

They could have done a lot better. 600 DPI would be a start, 1200 much better.

[Spinneyhill]

2 hours ago, Morgan Wright said:

They could have done a lot better. 600 DPI would be a start, 1200 much better.

 

Who is "they"?

 

If the original screen was at say 130 dpi, or 250 dpi, or ?, how often would a 300 dpi scan, let alone a 600 dpi scan and a 1200 dpi scan, hit a dot? And remember the dot sizes are different too. And what is the copier to do between dots, when it doesn't hit one? It interpolates, maybe, if you are lucky. But now it is a fuzzy image. Then you save it as a jpg, which throws away some detail as well (it is a lossy compression). 1200 dpi just means you have to make more interpolations (there are more misses) than at 600 dpi.

 

For printing today, 200 dpi is enough anyway.

[Brian_Heil]

Order placed on April 16

 

Still no delivery on my end.

 

Will comment on print quality once received.

 

Will deal directly with the AACA Library for copies of info. in the future.

 

Right or wrong, my impression is the BHA is a middle man making money off a widely uninformed captured audience since the info. is stored at the AACA Library anyway.

 

I hear the BCA financials are under review.  Makes me wonder about the BHA's 501(c)3's.

[Steve Moskowitz]

Whoa, whoa, whoa!!  First of all, the BHA, from our perspective, is a first-rate organization that is almost 100% volunteers.  They have saved very important literature when no one else was making it a priority.  We get to interface with their members and I can tell you they are hard working and caring.  The entire reason the collection is stored with us is that we have the best safeguards and storage for the materials in the business and also have 3 librarians with their master's degree.

 

I cannot comment on the time it takes to get materials but to suggest ANYTHING that remotely that their financials are out of order or suspect is very unfortunate.  EVERY 501 C 3 has their financials audited (this year they announced a new way for non-profits with smaller incomes not to have a certified audit). 

 

I will forward this thread to the BHA as I believe they will be most concerned with the comments.

[Brian_Heil]

Thank you Steve.

 

I did a search of the AACA Library and Research Center online just now.  The same document is listed as available.  Not sure if this is the same document or if both organizations have copies.  So this leads me to my following questions.

 

How are documents shared or are they shared with the BHA?  Let me ask it this way, if someone asks the BHA for a document that they do not have (own?) does the BHA then request it of the AACA Library?  What is that arrangement?  This is what I was led to believe.  Hence my middle man comment.

 

Same for the opposite, if someone asks the AACA for a document that is property of the BHA, does the AACA have to pay the BHA to copy the document they store and then pass it on to the requester?  Does the AACA have that access directly?

 

I'm not picking on anyone at the AACA.  I fully support your efforts and personally commend you for the stance with the Museum issue.

 

I'm trying to understand the value add of the BHA to the stream, if their documents are already at the AACA Library.

 

I also understand to safely store and to accurately research items it takes professionals, which is the case with the AACA Library and Research Center, and neither is free.

 

Thank you again.

[Steve Moskowitz]

Brian, first I called the President of the BHA as he is an AACA member and well known to me.  There is not a finer, more decent man that exists and his integrity is above reproach.  He is tied up with business but will provide a response soon.  In the meantime he did re-affirm that the BHA is an all volunteer organization and of course their financials which are available to the public are in exceptional order.

 

Now to answer some of your questions.  The BHA stores THEIR materials for the most part here in our library to protect them.  The materials belong to the BHA and they simply pay a modest fee for our services. If anything AACA is the middle man here as the materials belong to BHA.

 

Now, the issue is sharing is not fully vetted but BHA takes the lead in providing copies as that helps fund their procurement of additional Buick documentation.  At times AACA may be asked to take the lead but both organizations communicate well in this regard.  In the future we expect a much more streamlined operation and of course both entities continue to add new literature to their shelves.

 

We may have an answer to your "quality issues".  BHA and AACA have great scanners but some of the material was scanned years ago by Terry Dunham and we expect that the technology at that time was not what we have today.  If either organization would scan something from an original today you would get great copies. I suspect you are getting a scan of a scan but the original scan is not super high definition.

 

Hope this helps.  I wish all marques had an organization which was devoted to saving historical documents as too many have been lost and thrown away over the years. 

[Brian_Heil]

Thank you again.

 

I'm not sure why people's character was brought up, but that's fine.  I don't believe I questioned anyone's.

 

Understand, the original quality of a document is what it is, or may not be.

 

The AACA Library is paid to store materials that belong to other organizations.  I would expect this.

 

You need to further help me understand this paragraph as it is not clear to me and I still have my questions above. 

23 minutes ago, Steve Moskowitz said:

 

Now, the issue is sharing is not fully vetted but BHA takes the lead in providing copies as that helps fund their procurement of additional Buick documentation.  At times AACA may be asked to take the lead but both organizations communicate well in this regard.  In the future we expect a much more streamlined operation and of course both entities continue to add new literature to their shelves.

 

 

[Steve Moskowitz]

Brian, once of my concerns was the comment about the BHA's financials.  Since I know all the individuals involved and we have ongoing discussions with them about the future  I knew without a shadow of doubt that there were no issues with their financials. That's all.  I might have misunderstood the comment.

 

Since it is BHA's material they take the lead in providing copies.  We provide copies of our own literature.  However, if they ask us to send something out on their behalf we gladly do.  We hope to work out an easier way to do things in the future but both organizations have been busy beyond belief.  This is a record time for us in getting literature donations. 

[Morgan Wright]

12 hours ago, Spinneyhill said:

 

 

For printing today, 200 dpi is enough anyway.

 

I wasn't talking about printing. I was talking about the pictures. I will scan one of the pictures from an original parts book at 200 DPI, 300, and 600 and post them here. Huge difference. Give me a few hours.

[Brian_Heil]

My order arrived in today’s mail.  A month and a day. 

 

First rate printing copy quality on nice heavy bond high gloss paper bound in a term paper type cover.

 

No issue with the actual product.  

[Brian_Heil]

More info on printing specs. 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Brian_Heil (see edit history)

[Morgan Wright]

Here are scans from the original H/K catalogue, at 200 DPI and 600, and a scan from the Buick Heritage Alliance reproduction of the E catalogue, at 600 DPI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spinneyhill]

It would be more useful if you showed them at the same size on the screen. You can see faint aliasing in the first (smaller) image above.

 

It appears to me as if the BHA have tried to remove the yellow or sepia aged paper colour and enhanced the graphics; perhaps they have gone too far?

 

Here are the three images at the same scale. The first is 200 dpi and the printing screen grid is aliased; the grid is clearly visible in the 600 dpi image but there is really no change in the resolution of the images.  It is interesting that in the BHA image, the right hand item appears to be rotated!

Edited May 19, 2018 by Spinneyhill (see edit history)

[Morgan Wright]

Resizing the 600 DPI to the same size as the 200 reduces the resolution. Let's increase the 200 DPI scan to the same size as the 600:

 

 

 

 

[Morgan Wright]

Either way, the BHA illustrations look like ca ca doo doo.