Tire Oddity

[old_charley]

Hey everyone.

I pulled these tires off a '13 that I bought about six months ago. This is what I found after cleaning decades of gunk off of them.
They're definitely OLD. They both have Monkey Wards Riverside tread but no brand name on them. They both have raised 30 x 31/2, 4 PLY, OVERSIZE "MADE IN U.S.A." AND "TRADE MARK" markings on both sides. Some of the yellow markings are worn more off of one tire but it does appear both markings are identical.
The one with the clearer yellow markings has the raised markings XXC 2 and 1081- -011 along the bead on one side and XXC 2 on the other side.
The other tire has raised XXC 178 and 222 along the bead and the serial(?) # 180 MN 423 on one side and XXC 178 and 1081- -011 on the other. I'm thinking that all the # and letter marks only amount to manufacturing codes. I don't know about yellow marks.
Russ Furstnow tells me he acquired a couple of tires with similar yellow markings around 1966.

So....any thoughts or knowledge about the yellow markings or lack of brand name? ? Wartime (WW2? Korea?) related. Government agency markings? I suppose the tires could have been manufactured under license from Wards, so no name brand? Whaddaya got?

[TXGOAT2]

My guess: They may be "seconds" sold for off highway use only.

[Erik Johnson]

My father had a 1930s Wards Riverside 30 x 3.5 "blem" or "second" on his '17 touring for many years. It had a slight defect in the bead so the Wards Riverside name was ground off.

According to my father, Wards Riverside tires were manufactured by U.S. Royal/Uniroyal. I don't know if this is true or not.

[TXGOAT2]

I doubt if Wards ever actually operated a tire factory. It may be that the actual manufacturer of the Riverside tires continued production for some time after Wards stopped selling them, using some other distribution channel, or perhaps someone had acquired the molds, but had not acquired rights to use the Riverside name.

[Erik Johnson]

I know that retailers such as Montgomery Wards didn't manufacture tires just as Sears didn't manufacture the 1950s Craftsman tablesaw or the 1980s Kenmore dryer in my basement which were manufactured by King Seeley and Whirpool, respectively.

Just mentioning that my father always said that Wards Riverside tires were originally manufactured by Uniroyal. He's 93 years and old has been in the antique car hobby since 1948. When he was a teenager, he would pick up good used 30 x 3 and 30 x 3.5 tires in order to save money - the age of the tire didn't matter as long as it was still "good." However, he also could purchase brand new, U.S. manufactured Wards Riverside clinchers in the late 1940s.

Some fellows in the hobby had no choice but do track down used tires for their antique cars because the particular size they needed were simply not being manufactured at the time.

[TXGOAT2]

I used to source tires from a junkyard. "Good live rubber", as the old proprietor was fond of saying. Many of the 16" tires probably dated to to WWII, since many had boots and vulcanized casing repairs. I learned to avoid the tires that looked good, with deep tread, in favor of those with half or more of the tread worn off. The good-looking tires usually had a fabric break or an old boot or vulcanized repair, and they'd usually fail after just a few miles.