It was well publicized, and people came from near and far and brought gobs of dough. Folks came from Britain and Germany, and I heard one man speaking Australian. A lot of the cars were drool-inducingly gorgeous. I had trouble taking pictures of a couple of cars because I had to shoot from an angle that cut some of the glare from the polished brass. Of course my favorites were among the less glamorous vehicles on the scene, but that's a matter of personal preference.
The sale began with parts laid out on the ground. There were some good items, but not nearly as many as at last year's Edmiston sale. There were plenty of people able and willing to spend a lot more than I was, and I thought some items sold way too high. It was nice to see some forum folks at the sale. I enjoyed visiting with David Siver, but failed to get a picture of him. I did manage to include John and Chris (shades & white shirts) in this shot. I don't trust my spelling, so I won't attempt their last name.
The auctioneer doing a lot of the selling was Dale Paolis. On the right (red shirt) is Noel Chicoine.
There were some advertising items, including a few porcelain signs, but the main attractions were cars and parts.
Stan Howe visits with Chris and Rose Brancacchio.
Some people dressed for the occasion.
1913 Harley. You don't see a lot of bikes with carbide lights.
1900 Mobile steamer runabout.
1923 Ford touring ready for the mountains, with Ruxtell and Rockies.
1912 Ford touring.
1912 Ford truck with special accessories.
Note the customized crank.
This truck was a great opportunity missed. Despite the humorous appearance it's mechanically first rate. It was on ebay with a Buy It Now price of $1800, but it sold at the auction for $13,500.
1907 Ford Model R runabout.
1904 Ford Model C runabout.
1903 Ford Model A rear entry tonneau, 1904 Ford Model AC rear entry tonneau, 1904 Model AC runabout.
1908 Columbia electric Mark LXX Victoria Phaeton.
1909 REO Model E Runabout.
1916 Ford touring.
This nice runabout wasn't part of the sale. Just somebody's transportation to the event.
This nice 1915 touring was another visitor.
The sale ended under the tent with parts and memorabilia.
There was a nice selection of lights.
Chris enjoys the 1906 Model N his dad just bought.
I managed to pick up a couple of bargains, and made up for it by overpaying for a couple of used tires. I spent more on travel than on the few things I bought, but the sale was fun.
What a great read ...
I enjoyed the pictures too ...
Thanks,
Jim
Just got home from the auction an hour ago. Long drive, didn't buy much, everything was pretty high. A cast iron intake manifold, the kind you have a dozen of if not a hundred of, sold for $50! I bought one tire, a bunch of spark plugs, one carburetor and a whole big stack of 1914-1917 Ford Times magazines and that's about it. Saw Dan and Ned Protexter, Kim Dobbins, Steve Jelf, Noel Chicoine, Evan ??(too late to remember), J D Van Horn, Merle Clark, John Tissy, lots of T guys from the Rapid City area club, it was fun even if you couldn't see what they were selling most of the time. The cars brought big bucks, the 04 AC brought $103,000 -- high dollar of the day. The repro carbs brought from $2000 down to $900. Too high for my piggy bank.
Was fun to see everybody. I thought there would be a lot more stuff than there was, there were no tools and not a lot of parts, very little T stuff as he was more interested in the early cars. Glad I went!!!!
Part of the reason I ended up going even tho I hadn't planned to was that the pre-1930 Cannonball Motorcycle run was in Sturgis Friday and Sheridan, Wyoming last night. I went down Saturday morning before the auction and watched them head out, after the auction I went to Sheridan and stayed, got up at 6 this morning and went down and watched them get the bikes started and timed out. Three classes, the smaller, slower ones go out first, then the mid size, then the bigger ones. The oldest was a 1915 Indian twin from Azuza, California, running fine, no problems, they have changed oil twice, other than that it has been trouble free except for a few little things, some of the bikes have had lots of problems.
Some rich guy has a big trailer with a machine shop to keep his bikes running -- it was really cool.
There were about a dozen 4 cylinder Henderson and Excelsiors, no 4 cylinder Indians because Indian didn't have a 4 prior to 34 or 35 when they bought Henderson. I have lots of pics, will post a couple later.
When I left to go shoot some video out on the highway, one guy was still kicking his Indian trying to get it started. That's part of the reason I gave up on my old Indians and am riding a new Suzuki Boulevard but I'd still like to have another old Indian. Even if they are hard to start sometimes.
So now I have the hots for an old motorcycle again. Fun like speedsters.
That was a lot of fine ol' brass.
Great pictures & descriptions
Stan - Indian bought the defunct Ace brand in 1927 & built them essentially unmodified except for paint color the last years of the 20's, so there could have been 4-cyl Indian's on the Cannonball, had someone brought one.
Indian copied the steering geometry of the Ace for their new 101 Scout in march of '28 - it gave the smaller Indians better handling and balance - but the longer wheelbase made it less suitable for riding the wall of death shows, so many shows has kept their short wheelbase '26/'27 Scouts until today
Excelsior/Henderson was a victim of the depression in 1931 but Indian struggled on with better running 4-cylinder bikes until WW2 - then when starting civilian production after the war they tried the british concept, failed & died
Perhaps they should have reintroduced the 4-cyl after the war instead? ..well, a modern 4-cyl could have been a hit in the 70's - think of all the Goldwings that sold - but up until then I guess times would have been very tough..
Steve, loved the pics, would like to know the selling prices of some of them.
Steve, Thanks for sharing the photos with us.
Great pictures again. Steve.
Much Thanks
Thanks, Steve. Those of us who couldn't be there really appreciate all the pictures. It looks like it was a really great auction.
Note to Noel - It looks like you might be wincing at the latest bid 'cause it's so high!
Keith
Jerry,
You can see all the results online:
https://www.proxibid.com/asp/catalog.asp?aid=49517
Interesting, I was just going by what one of the guys there said about the four cylinder Indians. I sold a 101 Scout engine to a guy about 45 years ago who wanted it for his Wall of Death show. About five or six years his daughter or maybe granddaughter was riding a 101 scout in a Wall of Death show in Butte during Evel Kinevel days. I doubt it was the same one but they had pictures of the show from the old days. I never got a chance to talk to her.
A large part of what happened to Indian is that they spent about every dime they had during the war to design and produce the 841 V twin. It was an entire new design for military use. The government chose the Harley design for its purchase and only bought a small amount of the transverse V twin from Indian. It was not a good design for road riders after the war and Indian did not produce it as a civilian version so did not recover any of the design cost. They did not have money to update the old Chief and again become competitive with Harley, which was rolling in money at the end of the war and had a design that sold well in its civilian version. Indian made some foolish choices but it wasn't all their fault. Basically, the U S Government in the guise of the war department broke them.
Prices: I didn't keep track of all of them but the Model F sold for $50,000, the REO truck for $40,000 and the 13 Harley for $26,000. It was hard to even tell what they were selling as there was such a crush of people around the cars you just had to try to listen from the outside to hear which car had just sold for how much. I got tired of watching it and went and got a cold drink. It all brought more money than I could afford.
I should have taken a truck load of T parts down and consigned them. All the junky T stuff brought more than it would ever bring anywhere else, I thought. The 1909 rear end, which some said wasn't a real 1909 anyway, brought $4500. I don't know much about the early stuff so I don't know. Never even looked at it.
There were a lot of castings for early Fords, I assume for the A, that are probably pretty hard to find anywhere else. I don't know if they sold high or low because I don't know what the market would be on them but they were well done and I don't know where you would ever find any others. There was a beautiful Ray Wells A body with Tonneau that sold for about $3500. I would have loved to have had it to put on a home made chassis of some kind. There was a lot of pretty cool stuff, there. You missed a good show if you didn't go.
Noel is not as happy as he was later when I let him have 8 Champion X plugs for ten bucks apiece. I'd already bought a couple hundred bucks worth of plugs and figured somebody else needed a deal, too. I have twenty or so Champion X new in the box and will never need all of them. I probably have 200 new T plugs of one kind and another. One guy kind of griped me, tho. There were several sets of odd brand plugs and when the choice was ten bucks he took one plug from each set. I bought all that were left and now have several sets with only three plugs that match. Bummer.
Stan - I'll bet that the plug guy that took one plug from each set was assembling a collection for display.
You can have the last laugh because you now have 3 sets to his one!
Get three 2x6s, paint them, drill holes for the plugs, put a plug in each hole, and sell one set at a time on Ebay.
If you'r shrewd you can get enough money to pay for the paint.
Steve, thanks for the great photos, almost like being there, cheers
Fred, that's way too much work for me. I just bought them because they will sell well at MY estate auction! =)
Steve,
Thanks for posting the photos and Rob for the link. The photos at the link provide some good photos of the pre-Ts for anyone looking for details and clues about them.
If you have a chance would you please pass on to John and his son Chris the contact information for the Early Ford Registry? The are located at: http://www.earlyfordregistry.com/ Since they purchased the Model N Ford Runabout, they would probably find the group helpful to them. They probably already know about the group -- but I would rather let them know again than assume they did but they did not. In the member’s section, the club has electronic copies of several of the booklets John would find helpful, such as "How to Run the Model N & R" as well as the "Price List of Parts" that contains a lot of maintenance information. People have timed their Model N,R,S, and SRs without knowing that the instructions are in the 1907 and 1908 "Price List of Parts & Repair" etc. booklet. We are a chapter of the Model T Ford Club of America and an Affiliated Registry of the HCCA.
Again, thank you so much for sharing our photos and thoughts.
Respectfully submitted,
Hap l9l5 cut off
Sounds like you guys ad fun, but not as much as me. My wife and I went "back to the scene of the crime". We celebrated our five year anniversary by driving our T around northern Minnesota, just like we did on our honeymoon.
I did place an online bid on the little Maxwell project, but it must have looked quite a bit better in real life than it did in the photos.
Yea, that dumpy fat guy in the red shirt is me. Boy, I need to go on a diet!! Looks like I'm trying not let them think I bid! There were several things I considered buying, but the price rapidly went past what I was willing to pay. I think the auctioneers did very well for the Schuchardt's and hope my family does as well at my sale. Thank you for the plugs,and the advice on the Stromberg, Stan.
I do have to say, Noel, that you look better in your "T outfit" like you had on in Rochester last year than you do in the red shirt. I don't worry what kind of fashion statement I make at an auction and the guy with all the money doesn't either, I think. I'd liked to have been buying on somebody else's money; unfortunately all I have is mine and I don't have that much.
Thanks for the invite to come up and stay at the cabin, I wish it had worked to do it this time, give me a call sometime when you know you're going to be there and I'll come down. I'd like to see it. It's only about 550 miles from here to Deadwood.
Noel,
You missed out on the original "Doctors Car?