Last night, my wife and I were discussing our '14 Touring. In a few years, it will be 100 years old. We couldn't decide which date should be it's birthday. It has a casting date on the engine block. Then, of course there's the serial number that it got when the engine was assembled. There's yet another date included as part of the body number. Lastly, I've got the original bill of sale which includes the date that Poter Nielsen took delivery of it at the dealership in Luck, WI. These dates span a period of about six months. Which one would you call the car's centenary?

Its birthday is the day it rolled off the assembly line. It was adopted when Mr. Nielsen drove it off the dealers lot

Given those choices, I guess I'd go with the body date, especially if it's within a few days of the engine serial number date. That's about when the car existed as a finished unit.

Eric, you have more dates for your car than I have for mine. The only one I have for my '24 is date of the serial number on the block. That's the one I use. In your case, you will have to decide.....

Sounds like 6 months of parties to me!

Eric
I agree with Bill in Adelaida.
The engine number indicates the date the engine was assembled at Highland Park. That engine could have been shipped to any one of several final assembly branch plants. The same is true of the body.
If you knew the (branch?) plant where the car was assembled and you had the shipping invoice with the car serial number to the dealer who sold it to Mr. Nielson you would be closer. When a Model T car shipped from the factory, Ford drew down on the buyers letter of credit and that would be very close to the date of manufacture.
I recently toured the Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. The process is no different. When they scan the vehicle serial number as it leaves the assembly line the dealer pays for it by bank transfer immediately and it go into the transport companies inventory.
Ron the Coilman

I'm in a similar situation with my '15. It has an engine casting date of 7/17/15, and I have the original bill of sale (with matching engine serial number) dated 9/4/15. The car was assembled in the Portland, Oregon plant as stamped on the bill of sale, but I'm stuck at that point. I wish there was a source for local assembly plant records, since I think this was one of the earliest cars out of the Portland plant (which still exists today as an office building).

The casting date of the engine block is simply the date of "conception".

If I had your wealth of options I think the date on the bill would be my first choice. As you know most, pre '26 I think, have only the block # with hopefully a matching title # to go by so I use that. 5/20/23 in my case. A '23 I owned a while back had a '26 eng & trans in it and that block # was on the title. Lost in time as to why but obviously wrong.

Ron, I agree with you on the shipping invoice. If I had that, I'd consider the date on it to be the car's birthday.

As we know, The engine serial number doesn't correlate exactly with the date that the car was actually assembled. I speculate that my car was assembled at the Minneapolis Assembly plant, as it was the nearest branch to Luck, WI at the time. But, I have no concrete knowledge. Bruce's book shows the engine serial (477,xxx) number falling on Mar. 19th, 1914, but cautions that some blocks of serial numbers were sent to the branch offices, marked in Ford's books on the day that they were sent, to be stamped on engines as they were assembled at the branch. Either way, we can be confident that the car was not assembled before Mar. 19th. The body number is 4-14-90684, which I would read as either April of '14 or April 14th. What I find surprising, is that given these dates, the car was delivered to Mr. Nielsen on July 6th, 1914. That seems like a long delay at a time when ford was struggling to meet demand.

The car number (from the patent plate), is 488,xxx. I'm unaware of any records dating those after 1911.

Lacking a definite answer, I may just go with the date that Mr. Nielsen took delivery. It's a lot easier to enjoy a Model T birthday party in Minnesota during July than in mid-March.

But first, I'll try to see if the shipping invoice is something that can be tracked down through the Benson archives. It would help answer my question and also be a nice piece of documentation for the car.

Ford was known for forcing inventory on dealers.

I would have no problem understanding that a car built in the winter or spring would be sold a much later date in the summer. I believe that people who lived in northern states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin were not particularly interested in purchasing a car during the winter or early spring. (it was also common for people to mothball their cars in the winter.)

Demand for new autos was probably highest in the summer, when people could actually drive them.

Carbon-14 dating. It's the only way to go.

;-)

Bob

I'm bringing the ice cream to Bill Dodd's '14's B-day party!