Original opalescent paint color exposed

[Graham Man]

I have only extensively researched Graham-Paige colors.  For Graham-Paige you could almost tell the car model by the color combinations.  Black was the only optional color available on all models 1928-1934.  Color matched fenders were available in late 1931 for an additional $3.  Graham-Paige reduced the number of offerings from about 18 body/model variations in 1928 to about 6 in 1932.  As the numbers decreased the color combinations increased and became available on all models/body styles.  Phaetons, town cars, all the special cars were all gone by late 1932.  I have not seen any listing of additional cost for pearlescent colors.  1933 was the lowest number of production cars built in modern history.  In 1932 Graham-Paige was maybe the only car company to post a meager profit.  I think the small car companies would do anything to get the sale, so my guess is no they did not charge extra.  CORRECTION: My friend a Graham-Paige historian has corrected me "Pearl Essence was an option available only on eight cylinder cars for $50 "

Edited September 13, 2020 by Graham Man (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

This thread has grown considerably while I was out of touch due to Califunny's "Public Safety Power Shutdown". And an interesting time to discuss "color" it is.

Even so-called "natural light", bright sunlight, etc, are not consistent.  Our sun is but one of millions of billions of stars in the universe and galaxy. All are slightly different. What we consider "natural" is what we were born into and become used to. The biggest thing affecting our color perception is simply what we learned from an early age. Our sun is a relatively small, unremarkable star on the outer edge of an unremarkable galaxy, but on average, near the middle of solar light spectrums. However, many stars glow on more extreme spectrums. All that aside, the next biggest thing affecting our perception of colors is not our sun, it is our atmosphere. What we call color, is a perception of the combination of spectrum, and filtering.

In my years as a communications systems tech/engineer, I worked on many types of systems. Certain specialty video systems were not among my fortes, however I worked with them enough that I had to understand them in discussions of work I had to do. So I won't pretend to know enough to explain everything. However, as children, we are taught in school some very basics of colors, and how mixing them becomes "red and blue makes green" and so forth. In video, and actually in the real world of the sciences, colors are adjusted by either and/or both of "color additive" and/or "color subtractive" methods. All colors change with any change in the light source. Just the way it is. The sky is blue because of both additive and subtractive influences. It is filtering the sunlight, and it is reflecting back from and to the ground below. Water in the atmosphere alters both filtering and reflection. How much water, humidity, vapor, or ice crystals, all affect the way that water effects the light, and any other electromagnetic spectrum passing through it (In a minute, a short story about that!). Other things in the air can also have serious effects on what we perceive, or "think" we see. Things like smoke.

All these wild fires are a nasty reality for too many of us. For some silly reason, for me, the alteration of the light outside and even into my house is very disturbing. Maybe it is because a few times in my life I was nearby and/or otherwise affected by destructive fires. I have never lost anything of value to an unwanted fire. However, a few times, neighbors have lost a lot to them. One very stormy night nearly twenty years ago, my wife, two sons, and I stayed up all night spraying down our house and barn (with my antique cars inside) as the local volunteer fire department tried in vain to stop the fire destroying the hundred year old home next door! I was grateful for their efforts (In spite of the total loss due to high winds whipping the flames beyond being possible for their water trucks to put it out). They said they were grateful for our efforts. We, and our garden hoses prevented the fire from getting a start on our two buildings, allowing them to put all they had into the neighbor's house. The first we knew of the neighbor's house going up in flames? Was the orange glow coming in our window!

For a week now, everything outside looks orange. The smoke overhead is so thick, it looked like sundown the other day at three o'clock in the afternoon! Most of the past week hasn't been much better.

 

Color, and our perceptions of it, is fascinating. Just imagine how the world looks to one that is colorblind? My two sons are colorblind. A favorite uncle when I was very young was colorblind. I wonder about how the world looks to them almost everyday.

 

Now for the "story" I promised. First, background and history. Our knowledge of science and the universe around us has come a long way in the past fifty years! So many things we really had no clue! When radio was in its early days of development, the understanding of what we now call "RF" (Radio Frequency), was so limited. Terms like "long-wave" and "short-wave" were used. It seems so silly today that what is called "short-wave" is in reality such a long wave in the radio spectrum of things, that younger people in the field will sometimes ask why anyone would have ever called it that (they need to study history a bit more!). In the 1950s, television led to terms like "high band" and "low band". Then when they figured out a way to go even higher in frequency, they called that UHF (Ultra High Frequency). Guess they still didn't realize how much higher it would go?

VHF (Very High Frequency) television operates between about 50 to 200 megahertz (that is millions of cycles per second versus our USA alternating current electrical that operates at 60 cycles per second). UHF runs around 400 to 600 megahertz.

As we moved further into what became known as "microwaves", there were some unexpected problems. Frequency ranges are governed somewhat by international treaties, military and commercial systems share some frequencies, but not others. Commercial systems did not become an issue until about 1970 when Ma-Bell began wanting to use satellites instead of burying another million miles of cables in the ground. A few years later, cable television became interested, as did a number of other commercial uses.

The story. Beginning about 1979, the company I worked for began building commercial satellite receiving sites. These were "C" band systems (think four BILLION cycles per second!), that had been used experimentally and by military for several years by that time. Use of the C-band satellite frequencies was familiar ground. The limited spaces available for commercial uses lead to experiments in what became known as the "KU" band. KU band worked fine on terrestrial uses and experiments. So satellites were built, and launched. In the early '80s, we built one of the early KU receiving systems for a hospital's education system. We had kept up with all the current news and developments available at the time, and there was quite a bit of confusion about mysterious failures without a known explanation. As it happened, we got the new dish, installed (at five feet across it was the smallest dish we had installed up to that time!), and working perfectly. It was a beautiful clear day, everything working fine, the monitor and audio running while we worked and as we were picking up our tools. And it went dead off. We dash back to the equipment, but it came back on before we could check anything. We triple checked everything again. Everything worked perfectly again. Again, leaving the monitor and audio on, we began picking up our tools. And again it went dead. I stood on the roof of that building, and stared up at a brilliantly blue (back to colors again!) sky! Something caught my eye. I hollered to the boss "Is it working okay?" He said "Just fine!" I hollered back "Keep a close eye on it!"  I added "How-----about-------------NOW?" Replied he "IT JUST WENT DEAD!" "What WAS it?" As he came out from the control room, I pointed way up high in the sky and told him "It was that little tiny cloud." Almost not visible to the naked eye. One tiny cloud was moving slowly away from the dish "line of sight", while the other had moved slowly toward it.

He (the boss) wound up on a long distance conference call the next morning with the satellite control center on the East coast. They were suspecting what we (and a few other receiving teams) managed to confirm. We were among a handful of receiving contractors that managed to catch the failure in action and see the cause. A certain type of extremely high altitude clouds contains ice crystals roughly a quarter inch long, the perfect fraction of a wavelength to block KU band frequencies. A few short years earlier, they didn't even know to expect that.

They had to up the output power levels on the satellites to push through those random clouds.

 

Criminy! I think I may have outdone myself. 

Anybody that reads all of that deserves a Gold Star!

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by wayne sheldon
Additional thought. (see edit history)

[Grimy]

Outstanding post, my friend!  Thank you!

[wayne sheldon]

And you my friend I think earned a gold star!

A bit too much drift. But I hope some information pertinent to the thread.

Hopefully some here can find something useful in all that.

Thank you.

[8E45E]

56 minutes ago, wayne sheldon said:

This thread has grown considerably while I was out of touch due to Califunny's "Public Safety Power Shutdown". And an interesting time to discuss "color" it is.

Even so-called "natural light", bright sunlight, etc, are not consistent.  Our sun is but one of millions of billions of stars in the universe and galaxy. All are slightly different. What we consider "natural" is what we were born into and become used to. The biggest thing affecting our color perception is simply what we learned from an early age. Our sun is a relatively small, unremarkable star on the outer edge of an unremarkable galaxy, but on average, near the middle of solar light spectrums. However, many stars glow on more extreme spectrums. All that aside, the next biggest thing affecting our perception of colors is not our sun, it is our atmosphere. What we call color, is a perception of the combination of spectrum, and filtering.

In my years as a communications systems tech/engineer, I worked on many types of systems. Certain specialty video systems were not among my fortes, however I worked with them enough that I had to understand them in discussions of work I had to do. So I won't pretend to know enough to explain everything. However, as children, we are taught in school some very basics of colors, and how mixing them becomes "red and blue makes green" and so forth. In video, and actually in the real world of the sciences, colors are adjusted by either and/or both of "color additive" and/or "color subtractive" methods. All colors change with any change in the light source. Just the way it is. The sky is blue because of both additive and subtractive influences. It is filtering the sunlight, and it is reflecting back from and to the ground below. Water in the atmosphere alters both filtering and reflection. How much water, humidity, vapor, or ice crystals, all affect the way that water effects the light, and any other electromagnetic spectrum passing through it (In a minute, a short story about that!). Other things in the air can also have serious effects on what we perceive, or "think" we see. Things like smoke.

All these wild fires are a nasty reality for too many of us. For some silly reason, for me, the alteration of the light outside and even into my house is very disturbing. Maybe it is because a few times in my life I was nearby and/or otherwise affected by destructive fires. I have never lost anything of value to an unwanted fire. However, a few times, neighbors have lost a lot to them. One very stormy night nearly twenty years ago, my wife, two sons, and I stayed up all night spraying down our house and barn (with my antique cars inside) as the local volunteer fire department tried in vain to stop the fire destroying the hundred year old home next door! I was grateful for their efforts (In spite of the total loss due to high winds whipping the flames beyond being possible for their water trucks to put it out). They said they were grateful for our efforts. We, and our garden hoses prevented the fire from getting a start on our two buildings, allowing them to put all they had into the neighbor's house. The first we knew of the neighbor's house going up in flames? Was the orange glow coming in our window!

For a week now, everything outside looks orange. The smoke overhead is so thick, it looked like sundown the other day at three o'clock in the afternoon! Most of the past week hasn't been much better.

 

Color, and our perceptions of it, is fascinating. Just imagine how the world looks to one that is colorblind? My two sons are colorblind. A favorite uncle when I was very young was colorblind. I wonder about how the world looks to them almost everyday.

 

Now for the "story" I promised. First, background and history. Our knowledge of science and the universe around us has come a long way in the past fifty years! So many things we really had no clue! When radio was in its early days of development, the understanding of what we now call "RF" (Radio Frequency), was so limited. Terms like "long-wave" and "short-wave" were used. It seems so silly today that what is called "short-wave" is in reality such a long wave in the radio spectrum of things, that younger people in the field will sometimes ask why anyone would have ever called it that (they need to study history a bit more!). In the 1950s, television led to terms like "high band" and "low band". Then when they figured out a way to go even higher in frequency, they called that UHF (Ultra High Frequency). Guess they still didn't realize how much higher it would go?

VHF (Very High Frequency) television operates between about 50 to 200 megahertz (that is millions of cycles per second versus our USA alternating current electrical that operates at 60 cycles per second). UHF runs around 400 to 600 megahertz.

As we moved further into what became known as "microwaves", there were some unexpected problems. Frequency ranges are governed somewhat by international treaties, military and commercial systems share some frequencies, but not others. Commercial systems did not become an issue until about 1970 when Ma-Bell began wanting to use satellites instead of burying another million miles of cables in the ground. A few years later, cable television became interested, as did a number of other commercial uses.

The story. Beginning about 1979, the company I worked for began building commercial satellite receiving sites. These were "C" band systems (think four BILLION cycles per second!), that had been used experimentally and by military for several years by that time. Use of the C-band satellite frequencies was familiar ground. The limited spaces available for commercial uses lead to experiments in what became known as the "KU" band. KU band worked fine on terrestrial uses and experiments. So satellites were built, and launched. In the early '80s, we built one of the early KU receiving systems for a hospital's education system. We had kept up with all the current news and developments available at the time, and there was quite a bit of confusion about mysterious failures without a known explanation. As it happened, we got the new dish, installed (at five feet across it was the smallest dish we had installed up to that time!), and working perfectly. It was a beautiful clear day, everything working fine, the monitor and audio running while we worked and as we were picking up our tools. And it went dead off. We dash back to the equipment, but it came back on before we could check anything. We triple checked everything again. Everything worked perfectly again. Again, leaving the monitor and audio on, we began picking up our tools. And again it went dead. I stood on the roof of that building, and stared up at a brilliantly blue (back to colors again!) sky! Something caught my eye. I hollered to the boss "Is it working okay?" He said "Just fine!" I hollered back "Keep a close eye on it!"  I added "How-----about-------------NOW?" Replied he "IT JUST WENT DEAD!" "What WAS it?" As he came out from the control room, I pointed way up high in the sky and told him "It was that little tiny cloud." Almost not visible to the naked eye. One tiny cloud was moving slowly away from the dish "line of sight", while the other had moved slowly toward it.

He (the boss) wound up on a long distance conference call the next morning with the satellite control center on the East coast. They were suspecting what we (and a few other receiving teams) managed to confirm. We were among a handful of receiving contractors that managed to catch the failure in action and see the cause. A certain type of extremely high altitude clouds contains ice crystals roughly a quarter inch long, the perfect fraction of a wavelength to block KU band frequencies. A few short years earlier, they didn't even know to expect that.

They had to up the output power levels on the satellites to push through those random clouds.

 

Criminy! I think I may have outdone myself. 

Anybody that reads all of that deserves a Gold Star!

 

 

A picture is worth your thousand words:

 

[wayne sheldon]

8E45E, We used to have a chart very similar to that one on our office wall, just to remind ourselves of how little of that spectrum we actually worked with! The part that really amazes me, is how little of that spectrum can be "seen" by our natural senses (mostly just the visual spectrum and the low end electrical that we can feel). I often wonder just how much spectrum we don't even know about yet? A point to ponder? I also often wonder what intelligent life on other worlds may "see"? Or "hear", "feel"? As I mentioned, some of my family being colorblind has made me think a lot about how differently they "see" our world. Just think about how other beings may perceive THEIR worlds?

[8E45E]

4 minutes ago, wayne sheldon said:

 As I mentioned, some of my family being colorblind has made me think a lot about how differently they "see" our world. Just think about how other beings may perceive THEIR worlds?

Oh, absolutely!  Water at great depths filter out most of the red spectrum before there's no visible light at all.  Imagine the sea life that thrive in the Marianas Trench 3-4 miles down, and how they view their world!!

 

Craig

[Graham Man]

My friend is a Graham-Paige historian (see comment below) has an interesting question...

 

Who offered metallic looking paint in the early 1930's?  If there were show cars painted metallic looking paint earlier who were they, and do we have any documentation?

 

1932 Graham Blue Streak

1932 Hudson Terraplane

1932 Studebaker Factory Indy Cars

1935 Auburn

1935 Packard

 

 

More?

 

1933 Graham 64 - painted in Golden Tan Pearl Essence (not original paint, recreated)

 

 

I have only extensively researched Graham-Paige colors.  For Graham-Paige you could almost tell the car model by the color combinations.  Black was the only optional color available on all models 1928-1934.  Color matched fenders were available in late 1931 for an additional $3.  Graham-Paige reduced the number of offerings from about 18 body/model variations in 1928 to about 6 in 1932.  As the numbers decreased the color combinations increased and became available on all models/body styles.  Phaetons, town cars, all the special cars were all gone by late 1932.  I have not seen any listing of additional cost for pearlescent colors.  1933 was the lowest number of production cars built in modern history.  In 1932 Graham-Paige was maybe the only car company to post a meager profit.  I think the small car companies would do anything to get the sale, so my guess is no they did not charge extra.  CORRECTION: My friend a Graham-Paige historian has corrected me "Pearl Essence was an option available only on eight cylinder cars for $50 "

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by Graham Man (see edit history)

[sftamx1]

1 minute ago, Graham Man said:

Who offered metallic looking paint in the early 1930?  If there were show cars painted metallic looking paint earlier who were they, and do we have any documentation?

 

1932 Graham Blue Streak

1933 Hudson Terraplane

1932 Studebaker Factory Indy Cars

1935 Auburn

1935 Packard

 

1932 Essex Terraplane offered metallic paint. Lowest priced car that year to do so. I polished a spot on the firewall of my '32 to show. That's the original finish.

[Graham Man]

 

From this picture is sure looks like Amelia's Terraplane was Opalescent color?

https://youtu.be/2yX83mJ-Wmk

 

John Dillinger's 1933 Essex Terraplane 8 (not Opalescent just like the car)

Edited September 13, 2020 by Graham Man (see edit history)

[sftamx1]

3 minutes ago, Graham Man said:

 

From this picture is sure looks like Amelia's Terraplane was Opalescent color?

 

John Dillinger's 1933 Essex Terraplane 8 (not Opalescent just like the car)

 

That wasn't her car but the '32 Terraplane she  special ordered was a metallic copper including the fenders. Only one like it.

Edited September 13, 2020 by sftamx1
Correction (see edit history)

[Graham Man]

This one looks much more like her "special order" style?  Roy Chapin was the Chairman  "its finest Terraplane"

Edited September 13, 2020 by Graham Man (see edit history)

[sftamx1]

15 minutes ago, Graham Man said:

This one looks much more like her "special order" style?  Roy Chapin was the Chairman  "its finest Terraplane"

No, she ordered a '32 4 door sdean.... What you have pictured is most likely a publicity photo showing a new model KU 6 for 1933. If she had owned  a '33, I'll bet she would have got the new Terraplane "8" the only year the straight 8 was offered.

Edited September 13, 2020 by sftamx1
Clarification (see edit history)

[Graham Man]

OK i am no Hudson Essex Terraplane expert, I will leave that to you guys.  Seems strange to me that Amelia Earhart would "special order" a 4 door sedan, in copper opalescent color after owning a bright yellow Kissel Gold Bug.  This 33 roadster looks like it is in copper opalescent, with matching fenders (the guy who owns the sedan, Earhart supposedly owned, has black fenders).  If it were a factory promotional photo why would she address it to the chairman of Hudson, and underline his name?  and why would she say "in the memory of the final Terraplane, and sign it?  If it were a factory photo, what about the background house?  Graham used the same promotional backgrounds for years, has the house appeared in other Hudson pictures?  The picture of her next to the 1932 Terraplane sedan is the only historic picture of her with a sedan, in all the promotional pictures she is dressed up, not in her flight suit.  The convertible picture includes licence plates, is that normal for Hudson promotional pictures?  Just questions, maybe she had more than one Hudson?

 

 

 Her Kissel Gold Bug

 

supposedly she was gifted this roadster from Chrysler

 

 

[sftamx1]

Unfortunately, no documentation connecting Amelia has been found on ANY of the Terraplanes mentioned. The most promising is the copper metallic 4dr, as it was special ordered  at the dealer in the town where Amelia's family lived. But no paperwork. The one of her with the convertible coupe is certainly staged, just as the one below with Roy Chapin and the '33 Terraplane 8 looks to be. But, it's just educated guess work at this point.

[60FlatTop]

Here is a '33 8 convertible coupe I serviced quite a few years ago.

 

Straight forward maroon.

 

I took care of a engine operating temperature problem. The great part about that was putting it through it's paces on a hot summer day. Surprisingly small car and it would sure scoot around well.

[sftamx1]

Yes the  early Terraplanes  had the highest horsepower to weight ratio of any production car in the world! They entered over 70 races/hill climbs in 1933 and won EVERY race! After a few beatings, the V8 Fords quit showing up.

[Michigan Farmer]

I checked the Auto Color Library for the 1933 Graham Pearl Essence Lacquer.  See their statement below ("Pearl Essence Lacquer - impractical to match").  How would a show car be judged that originally wore a pearl essence color if it is impossible to match the original color?  Would the car be marked down if it used mica in the paint instead of fish scales?

 

I did a brief survey of known 1933 Grahams on a registry put together by a Graham Club member. While not all the data is complete, (and 1 or 2 cars seem to appear every year) my survey shows that of the 34 eight cylinder cars, 7 are known to have been painted in pearl essence.  Of the 31 6 cylinder cars, at least 3 were painted in pearl essence (most of the paint codes are not known for the 6 cylinder cars).

 

According to the 1932 article posted above from Industrial Finishing, the process of painting pearl essence color seems rather straight forward.  Two double coats of the ground color (same color as used for tinting the pearl essence),  let the color coats dry, three coats of the pearl essence, let it dry and lightly sand with 400 paper, and then a mist coat of high grade thinner.  

 

While I am no expert at painting, it seems that if you could come up with a formula for the ground color that you could experiment with ground fish scales to make a pearl essence paint.  Fish scales appear to be available from oversea sources.  Any thoughts or would it be impossible to do?  

 

Ron

[edinmass]

[edinmass]

[60FlatTop]

Here is my '33 Essex Terraplane chassis from just a little over 20 years ago.

 

It was going to become my replica Railton.

 

What I had was a version of the chassis that was shipped to England for the Tourer body. I did a lot of research at the time. Mr. Bell, the owner of the Driving Miss Daisy Hudson, had a Railton and graciously offered to let me visit and document all the critical details. I never got that far. It was one of those big projects that never materializes.

I posted the chassis for sale on the internet Hudson forum and Ed Moore scooped it up 8 hours after I posted it. Last time I talked to Ed he had sold it, but I am pretty sure it still looks the same, another one I should have kept.

[AHa]

I had every intention of painting my 1932 Graham Blue Streak Avon Blue and did extensive research into the color and method of painting and even had the fish scales donated to the project. All along the way I was told not to attempt it but with dogged determination I plowed ahead. Somewhere a long the way I learned the fish scales will not hold up to ultra violet light. It doesn't take long for the iridescent effect of the fish scale to fade in natural day light. It was not long ago the EPA's ban on Nitro Cellulose Lacquer, which is the natural carrier of fish scale, made it impossible to spray out the paint but I was even offered some for the project. Fish scale produces a superior iridescent finish in car paint but remains impractical. When the fish scale can be made to be stable in UV light, no doubt some cars will be finished in them but for the time being, the time and expense to produce such a finish only to have it fade in a few weeks remains impractical.

[sftamx1]

AHa, I wonder if the fish scale paint could be preserved with a Clear coat that has UV blocking  additive? I've used the UV protective clear on modern headlights that get destroyed in the sun,and it holds up well!

[AHa]

There are two problems with the fish scale paint. The first is the Nitro Cellulose Lacquer. It has been banned by the EPA. I know the fish scale needs the Nitro Cellulose Lacquer as a carrier.  Can you add a UV blocking additive to NCL? Or is there a clear that will adhere to NCL? The other is the stability of fish scale in UV lighting.

[Gary_Ash]

Here is all you ever/never wanted to know about why fish scales have iridescent colors:  https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.2014.0948

This is interesting to those of us who spent a career in optical physics, the rest of the world doesn't give a hoot.  Industrially-produced iridescent pigments make reflected colors in the same way using many layers of alternating materials on microscopic mica platelets or other bases but don't fade with exposure to UV, a case of having your cake and eating it, too.   

[AHa]

The big caveat is "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." Of course anybody who has ever worked in modern iridescent pigments is going to believe the product is far superior to the natural product. And why not, nobody has seen natural fish scale paint on a car in 85 years. It was only used a few years and then only on a few cars.  Its effects quickly faded. The only evidence we have is the testimony of those who have seen it, who are mostly non existent today. The subtle effect, which is much less dramatic than modern iridescent, is unknown.

 

The big thing today is colors that can make big changes, from silver to blue and white to pink and so on. A car that merely glimmers within the color it is painted has no hope of impressing anyone. We don't live in the early 1930s.

 

If you want to know the effects of fish scale iridescent, talk to someone who has pulled a Dolphin fish from the water. The color is awe inspiring but quickly fades as the fish dies.

Edited September 18, 2020 by AHa (see edit history)

[Paul Dobbin]

On one ofthe Great American Races in the 80's or 90's, when I was in a 1935 Chrysler C1 Airflow, a spectator

came out in his all original one owner 1935 Chryseler C1 Airflow that I thought was metalic green like some cars

pictured in this thread.  Sombody said it was originally fish scale in the paint, is that possible?  It was faded, but

in the door jams it was perfect.

[sftamx1]

13 minutes ago, Paul Dobbin said:

On one ofthe Great American Races in the 80's or 90's, when I was in a 1935 Chrysler C1 Airflow, a spectator

came out in his all original one owner 1935 Chryseler C1 Airflow that I thought was metalic green like some cars

pictured in this thread.  Sombody said it was originally fish scale in the paint, is that possible?  It was faded, but

in the door jams it was perfect

Graham had the fish scale paint. Others used the fine powdered metallic, which was accidently made when the paint mixing machine paddles malfunctioned and started scraping the soft aluminum sides of the container.

[Graham Man]

1935 Chrysler Palm Green Metallic .... so yes it could have been

 

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?manuf=Chrysler&year=1935&con=yk&rows=50

 

 

Might be the color?

[Michigan Farmer]

AHa - What was your solution to painting your 1932 Graham Blue Streak  in Avon Blue?

[58L-Y8]

7 hours ago, Graham Man said:

1935 Chrysler Palm Green Metallic .... so yes it could have been

 

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?manuf=Chrysler&year=1935&con=yk&rows=50

 

 

Might be the color?

Oh no!  The 1970's Mopar avocado green metallic so popular then had an historic precedent!

[8E45E]

1 hour ago, 58L-Y8 said:

Oh no!  The 1970's Mopar avocado green metallic so popular then had an historic precedent!

 

[AHa]

Mr Farmer,

After much research a paint example of Avon Blue could not be found so I went to the paint store and picked a blue that I thought looked close.

[Graham Man]

This is the only picture I have of Avon Blue from 1932.  It was from a prototype Graham 57 grill shell.  It came up on ebay a few years ago.  The picture is inside the grill surround.  The grill looked pretty much factory from the front but the back you could see it was completely fabricated.  The reason I am pretty sure it is Avon Blue is because a friend of mine found a set of headlights for a 57, the inside were painted this same color.

 

Interesting the comment that the fish scales did not last, this could easily be true.  How our cars were stored over the years is anybody's guess, direct sunlight can take out black paint so most likely it did.  I did get to see a Graham in Colorado still sporting original Golden Tan in 2010, you could still see the pearlescent glitter.  I tried to get a good picture but could not capture it in all its glory.  

 

Personally (back to the Tarraplane color) I would try to match the colors using modern paints that look as close as possible... isn't that what restoration is anyway?  We will never be able to recreate the factory environment, we just want it to look historically correct?  I have yet to see someone try to recreate the oil cloth and tar roof material from 1932 and nobody seems to care.

 

 

[AHa]

The problem is Avon Blue was not a big deal at the time. It was only after people saw the car with this wonderful blue paint on it that it became a big deal. Graham had stock colors but you could order your car any color you wanted and several 32s have non stock colors. I have a set of headlights with a "blue" on them that I do not believe was Avon Blue. The sales brochure, which is an artist rendering, shows a lighter blue and of course, color is a function of light. Without a formula, we simply don't know. I believe the grill shell shown above was the last piece of the puzzle that I used to decide on the color I chose. I decided I wanted a 32 Graham Blue Streak because of a sales brochure depicting one hanging on the wall in a friend's office so when a 32 came up for sale I bought it. I had no idea matching the Avon Blue color was going to be such a huge deal, both to me and a whole lot more people. One guy came to my house from several states away just to see what I was doing; and I hadn't done anything other than research.

Edited September 22, 2020 by AHa (see edit history)

[AHa]

I was contacted by a guy that had an 8mm film of an Avon Blue car as it went around a race track. It was a promotional film put out by Graham. I haven't heard from him for a while so...

[Graham Man]

[AHa]

Here is the color I chose for my car. Pretty close match to the car above, huh?

 

I just think that is a beautiful car. Thanks for the post Scott.

Edited September 22, 2020 by AHa (see edit history)

[8E45E]

3 minutes ago, AHa said:

Here is the color I chose for my car. Pretty close match to the car above, huh?

That reminds me of Testor's Pla 'Sapphire Blue' from my scale model-building days!!