MTFCA Forum

Interesting showroom in last photograph....
J. E. Carson and Son's showroom in Colchester, Illinois, well stocked with new 1913 style
Black & Brass cars. However, the first two on the lower right, red arrows (and three across
from them) appear to have John Brown 19 and John Brown 100 all brass lamps.

Next car back on left, Black & Brass John Brown 16 headlamps and John Brown 110 side lamps,
green arrows.

Number 9 photo from the top looks like a fairly new Touring that wound up in the gulch. I wonder how it got there by looking at the supposed bridge that may have collapsed ???
Or was it a bridge or road at all.
Maybe the T was pushed off and just left. A close look shows it’s resting in a pool of water. Maybe this was a T that was left and forgot about. There were lots that were!

John kuehn wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 2:50 pm

Number 9 photo from the top looks like a fairly new Touring that wound up in the gulch. I wonder how it got there by looking at the supposed bridge that may have collapsed ???
Or was it a bridge or road at all.
Maybe the T was pushed off and just left. A close look shows it’s resting in a pool of water. Maybe this was a T that was left and forgot about. There were lots that were!

I think there was a flood and it wasn't obvious that the bridge had been washed out. Just a bit of water over the bridge, "No probl.................."

Picture #9.. what year? late 1912?

In the last picture look how nice & taut the top boot is on the T in the back right.

The transition from 1912 to 1913 models was really messy. 1912 had been an entire model year of constant changes. The engine's serial number was placed in five different locations. Between step-side and slab-side touring cars, one or two piece firewalls, and rear doors that some opened from the front, others from the back, there were at least five significant variants of the touring car bodies! Roadsters and runabouts also came in several variations.
The transition to 1913 included an unknown number of variations in front fenders! Some had an anti-rattle bead across the rear slope of the front fender, some did not. Some had the bead around the inner skirt, some didn't. The funny thing is that I have seen all four combinations of that. The true 1912 fender has neither bead, but has been seen on early 1913s. Other early to mid year 1913s could be with-without, without-with, or with-with on the beads.
Era photos also indicate that while quite a few late 1912 models got the black and brass lamps? (Often actually black painted over some of the brass?) Quite a number of early 1913s got all brass lamps!

Studying these details in era photos can be quite difficult. Most photos do not show many details clearly. Rarely do photos actually show the beads on the front fenders, and almost never both beads can be seen on a single fender. Headlamps and sidelamps usually cannot both be seen well in a single photo, and if they can be seen, often the photo is too distant that with a bit of tarnish on the brass a person cannot tell for certain whether they were originally painted or polished?

This is a great photo! Not only can both headlamps and sidelamps be seen up close and shiny! But just enough of the windshield can be seen to identify it as a 1913.

Thanks to Tom R and others again.

A Model T crumpled that flat in photo no. 9 must have had a severely injured driver or a dead one.
Unless he jumped out ahead of time the windshield glass and the steering wheel surely cut him up pretty bad. Just thinking about it I look at the torn up T’s and see how life was a 100 years ago. Maybe the driver turned out OK.
I love seeing these old photos and think about how things turned out. They are part of history and time moves on. Either way thanks for posting them.

Photo #15
Ford Sales and Service
Hartford Ave
Farragut, Iowa

I always enjoy Wayne's comments.

Thank you Larry S, I appreciate that. If you ever catch me in a factual error, please correct me. I want people to get some of this stuff right. I find it so very interesting that I just cannot help myself for looking closely and trying to figure out the details of our beloved model T's history.

The fifteenth photo (next to last of the original 16) isn't very good for detail. However, it appears to be a fixed roof sedan "kit" on a touring car! I find those so interesting, how people slowly progressed through the change in expectations of their automobiles and desire for comfort in all weather.

Number ten is a great boat-tail speedster, very similar to the two that I used to have. I never found an exact match in era literature to them, however, the first one we pretty much settled on it probably being an original Champion body built for the model T chassis. This particular car in this photo is as close to my car as I have ever seen.

The few crash photos are somewhere between interesting and disturbing. Number nine appears to be a nearly new 1912 (step-side touring car with fore doors) that ran off a washed out cement road. I would like to know the story behind that. Cement roads were not very common that early.

The photo makes me think of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. I was at work, driving back to the shop when it hit. It was bizarre driving through the streets, accidents all over, power lines down and sparking, one place the asphalt street was ablaze! Took about twenty minutes to go the ten miles to the shop, and the office tv was on the local news channel (the one that wasn't clear off the air at that time!). They were showing live coverage from a sister station's helicopter, showing the Oakland Bay Bridge which had dropped an upper section of the roadway down onto the lower section, effectively closing the entire bridge in both directions, as well as trapping hundreds of cars. The reporter and cameraman had spotted a panicky driver that had turned around and headed the wrong direction on the upper level roadway at high speed. I watched the on camera live as it happened as the driver ran off the top section into the gaping space where the upper section had dropped away onto the lower section.
That film footage was replayed hundreds of times over the next months and even years, but I saw it live as it happened. The driver never even noticed that the roadway was gone in front of him. He I guess never wondered why nobody was coming towards him as he went speeding the wrong way (because he couldn't get off the right direction). The road was just supposed to be there, and the next thing he knew he in his crumpled car was sitting on the roadway below.
I can't help but wonder if this fellow didn't do the same thing.

Photo eleven is another one to wonder what happened. Were both cars on the bridge? Did one driver swerve to avoid the other (clearly a foolish move if so?)? Hopefully the driver and any passengers were thrown clear and hopefully not seriously hurt.
The car appears to be a 1913, with a folds forward windshield and straight support rods. With a few recent discussions including the variations in 1913 front fenders, I had to look at this one. At first glance I thought the fron fender appeared to not have the bead on the slope of the back part of the front fender. But then I zoomed in closer. Looking closer, there does appear to be a bead camouflaged in the mud splatter. So, in spite of the poor lighting angles, in this case I would say this car does have an anti-rattle bead across the back slope of the front fender.

Were you a columnist in a previous life, Wayne ?

#11 reminds me of my dad saying that a man was headed home from a small Nebraska town and drove into a creek.
When the sheriff asked him what happened he admitted he had been drinking and as he came to the creek he saw 2 bridges and took the wrong one.

RajoRacer wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 7:47 pm

Were you a columnist in a previous life, Wayne ?

(Me, laughing.) One might think so? But no, there were a lot of things I should have been but never really was.

Antique automobiles in general and model Ts in particular have been a lifelong passion for me. I have been reading about them since I was in grade school, and working on them when I could since soon after. I have never stopped trying to learn more about them, and very much like to share what I have learned. Era photographs allow me to do both.

Drkbp wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 2:27 pm

Interesting showroom in last photograph....
J. E. Carson and Son's showroom in Colchester, Illinois, well stocked with new 1913 style
Black & Brass cars. However, the first two on the lower right, red arrows (and three across
from them) appear to have John Brown 19 and John Brown 100 all brass lamps.

Next car back on left, Black & Brass John Brown 16 headlamps and John Brown 110 side lamps,
green arrows.

For once I too noticed these little details of different lamps for 13/14, I haven't been able to see good enuf about the windshield support rod to tell. Heckuva huge batch of cars there in his inventory.

TWrenn wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2024 9:25 am

Drkbp wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 2:27 pm

Interesting showroom in last photograph....
J. E. Carson and Son's showroom in Colchester, Illinois, well stocked with new 1913 style
Black & Brass cars. However, the first two on the lower right, red arrows (and three across
from them) appear to have John Brown 19 and John Brown 100 all brass lamps.

Next car back on left, Black & Brass John Brown 16 headlamps and John Brown 110 side lamps,
green arrows.

For once I too noticed these little details of different lamps for 13/14, I haven't been able to see good enuf about the windshield support rod to tell. Heckuva huge batch of cars there in his inventory.

I do see the car with the "red arrows" pointing to the lamps is definitley a '13 given the fender "bill" with the slight slant. Don't see too many of those around here. Mine goes straight down like most I've seen.

Tim,

I noticed that the lower left two cars appear to have the short slanted front fender "bill".

The "equal size" windshield glass panel types are also obvious on several of the cars.
Shows as more rake in the lower panel, yellow arrows. I believe they are Rands, or Vanguard.

There is a photo of a near new 1925 front view. It looks to me like the car is probably a 25 model produced in 1924 or early 1925. Sometime in mid-year 1925, my guess, is Ford went to the 1926 front spring which added a leaf, and lowered the car 1" at the same time. Does anyone know when?

Art imitating life- a good example of customer painted wheels