Help to research a now defunct Buick dealer in Baltimore...

[moran75]

Hi All

 

I'm researching a now defunct Buick dealer in Baltimore that sold my Riviera new in 1965. Address on the invoice is:

Buick - The Motor Sales Company
26 W.Mt Royal Avenue
Baltimore 1
(Saratoga 7-3311)

.

I'm pretty sure that the attached post card promo is the same place...though address on card doesn't quote no.26 - just street names and Saratoga 3311 - whatever that refers to...

 

Would anyone know of a resource/individual who collects details of old buick dealers as i'd really like to find an actual photo - searched all over the web and via various Maryland historical societies but with no luck..what i do know is that site was bought and redeveloped by the Univ of Baltimore.

 

Dealer may have been taken over by Pat Hays Buick before Univ of Baltimore bought the land - but that hasnt helped my search either....

 

1000 thanks in advance

 

Kev

[Bill Stoneberg]

Saratoga 7-3311 is probably the phone number.  This was back before they went to all numbers.

 

S & A are the first 2 digits of the number S = 7 A = 2.  So the number as we think of it now would be 727-3311.

 

 

[Frank DuVal]

Ah, the younger generation!

 

Telephone Exchanges were names added to the 5 digit numbers that came after the 4 digit number system, that came after "Sarah, please get me the feed store"......

 

The Motor Sales Company probably had the 5 digit number 7-3311 before C&P (That's the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of the Bell System) went to 7 digit dialing.

 

Here is a list of the common names. Growing up mine was Atlantic 2.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange_names

 

Next came area codes, so one could dial long distance without going through the long distance operator. It was called Direct Dialing. 

 

Also to note on that card, the absence of a zip code. That card is way older than your 1965 Buick. Zip codes were introduced in 1963. The card address does have the internal city postal code of 1. This was the first step in assigning geographical areas of a city to different post office locations for sorting purposes. Growing up, mine was Richmond 26, Virginia. Typically when zip codes were assigned, the city 3 digit code got the two digit internal code appended making that probably 20201.

[Bloo]

^^ What they said. As long as you have 5 digits it is easy to convert. Just take the first 2 letters of the name of the exchange and tack them on. Here, it was TUrner back in the day, and NOrmandy in the town across the river. TU becomes 88 and NO becomes 66. That is what the letters are for on an old phone dial.

 

 

 

[NTX5467]

Seems like the "1" in a city address, was the main post office for that city?  In areas with only ONE delivery zone (as in smaller towns), there was no number between the city and state.

 

As time progresses, telephone area codes have increased in number as each code apparently can only include so many numbers.  With these increases in phone numbers, the geographic area of the larger area codes shrinks.  Notably so as things progressed in TX.

 

NTX5467

[billbuickgs]

Kev ,

The Motor Sales Company was a Chrysler / Plymouth for many years

in Baltimore City . When their neighbor ( Kelly Buick ) at Charles St &

Mt Royal Ave went out of business 55 or 56 , Motor Sale got the

franchise and late Pat Hayes took over . 

My uncle was a salesmen at Kelly Buick from 1949 to their closing .

In 1953 at age 11 , my Dad took me to see the new Buicks .

Wow , what a treat that was !

On the show room floor was a beautiful black convertible  . 

I never saw  that name on a Buick before .

It said Roadmaster on the front and back and " SKYLARK "

on the sides , What a beautiful car .

It took me 25 years to finally own a 1953 Skylark !!!

Sorry to run on .

Bill

 

[cooterbfd]

And this is what Sarah used to connect you with the feed store

[Frank DuVal]

Hey, Cooter. When my dad was in St. Luke's hospital for a back injury back in the 60s, they still had one of those and an operator. Sat in the lobby area. It was their internal PBX system. I would sit and watch her answer the phone and plug the other end of the cord into the extension the caller needed. By that time, the Bell System had already been using the relay switching banks, later replaced with ESS. Fun watching an anachronism in the flesh.

 

And yes, NTX, the 1 code was the main post office in all the cases I know of.

[cooterbfd]

Frank, I had bought a PBX swichboard that came out of a hotel in NH. It had just been taken out of service, and this was 2004!!! This is even older. A Stromberg-Carlson switchboard from 1910-1920.

 

Couldn't pass that up.........for $45!!!!

[EmTee]

Boy, this discussion brought back some memories...  My home phone when I was growing up was GLenview 8-5215 (458-5215).  It must have been about 1969 when my father brought home a new 'Trimline' rotary dial phone for the kitchen.  I remember thinking how slick that phone looked compared to the desk phone in the livingroom!

 

[Gary_Ash]

I went to high school at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute 1957-61, about 3 or 4 blocks north from Mt. Royal Ave.  I remember the car dealers being there, don't think I have any photos of them.  I also remember there was a jingle for a car dealer on local radio ads that included the line repeated several times, "...Mt. Royal and Maryland Avenue..."  as a reminder of where the car dealership was.  Zell Motors, the Packard dealership, was across the street from the Buick dealer.  See https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/540.  That building is still there, currently for rent, can be seen on Google Maps street view.  

 

Try posting on the Facebook group "Baltimore Old Photos", someone might have just what you want.

 

Our phone number in the early '50s was BElmont 5908, later BElmont 5-5908 in Baltimore 18, MD.  When we moved to Baltimore 12, MD, we got the TUxedo 9 exchange.

 

Here are a couple of photos I grabbed from the Killduffs.com website, maybe where you got the Motor Sales Co. image.