The First Ford sold.

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The First Ford sold.

Post by ModelT46 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 11:59 am

Not all correct, but interesting. Copied from the internet:
It was on this day in 1903 that the Ford Motor Company sold its first car, a two-cylinder Model A. It was sold to a Chicago dentist named Ernst Pfenning, who paid $850 for it. The Model A was painted red, with a seat that fit two people, and no roof. It reached 28 mph at top speed. The Ford Motor Company had organized just a month earlier. There were 12 stockholders, including Henry Ford himself, who was also the vice president and chief engineer.

Ford had $28,000 in investment funds, but by the time the first Model A was sold, the company had just $224 left in the bank. Fewer than 2,000 Model As sold during the two years the car was manufactured, but it was enough to make the Ford Motor Company profitable.

In 1908, five years after selling the first Model A, Ford rolled out its Model T, and the company truly took off. The Model T was the first car produced on assembly lines, and Ford marketed it to the middle class.

Following are my added comments.
After the A came these" AC,B,N,K,R,S, T and then the A agin, then the B, Model 18, then the 40 and on and on.

William Clay Ford II went to Europe several years ago and bought back the first Ford sold by the Ford Co.
It took Henry Ford three ir four years to buy enough stock from the other stock holds to control the company. The Dodge Brothers each owned 5%. Most of the chasis parts for the early Fords were made by Dodge.

In 1919 Henery announced he was turnng oner control of the company to his son and that he (Henry) would start a new auto company. The concerned minority stock holders the sold out to Henry for about 75 million. (actually probably worth about 400 million.)


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:03 pm

Forgot the C and F in your list, Darel

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Mark Nunn » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:42 pm

I think the first two paragraphs were copied directly from the book "Tin Lizzy".


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by ModelT46 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:13 pm

I forgot the F, a 2 cylinder for 1904 and 5. The C was called the AC by many.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by John Codman » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:44 pm

The T was not the first car produced on an assembly line.

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by TonyB » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:35 pm

John, what the first car built on an assembly line?

I remember reading that the assembly line was invented for the flywheel assembly as the ladies who assembled it could not manage the weight so they used a conveyer. Then things developed from that. 😊
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:50 pm

No, the A was the first, 8 hp. After about 1000 cars ( I could look it up) they changed the design of the engine to 10 HP ....but otherwise it looks pretty much like the A. Some historians, Pate for one, have made up names for this model, and I think incorrectly. FoMoCo itself named it the AC. The C was an entirely new model, very little will interchange with the earlier A and AC, but the serial numbers were successive. The F was again, an entirely different car, and was 12 HP. During these first couple of years with the two cylinder fords, many changes, some small , some big, were made during production of each. The car I have studied in detail is the F , and from the surviving examples , I don’t think any are identical. They may have made some clones of the previous day, but from the 20 ? examples, we have not seen it. It would be just a guess on my part, but probably the A,AC, and C are similar , with many minute and major differences. We need to remember these were built one at a time by the first “car guys” , and some of the things they did on Tuesday gave them an oh crap! moment on Wednesday. Some of the fixes are almost comical, but they got the bloody things out the door. IMHO , the most fascinating time of FoMoCo was the first decade.
And Darel, I forgot to mention the model E, the delivery wagon. Even though it was made in small numbers, and today is like a unicorn, it was produced in a quantity so should probably be included.
Last edited by Dropacent on Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:52 pm

Thanks for the good info. Always good to go back to our roots....

One clarification. Ford did not produce a Model AC. The Model A began with an 8hp motor that was later upgraded to 10hp. The same 10 hp motor was used on the 1905 Model C. Parts books may have referred to some components as "AC" because they were used on both models.

Thanks again for the thread.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:55 pm

Just saw your post, Rob. I respectfully disagree with some or maybe all of that. The A,AC,C and F motors are all different, in many if not all aspects. When Ford distinguished a model by a different name, that’s good enough for me.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Will » Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:15 pm

Just a whisker off topic, It sold for $850.00 In today's money that's around $23,925 using a google inflation calculator. The Dr must had been doing very well. The average yearly income in 1090 according to google was between $200 and $400 a year.
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by CudaMan » Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:35 pm

"Pate's Early Ford Automobile Encyclopedia" has a good discussion about the first Ford sold, it was a runabout with only a horn and sidelights, no headlights or tonneau. The buyer was a Doctor H. Wellington Yates. The book does not mention what its serial number was (you can't assume it had a serial # of 1). If it has survived to the present day, it has not been found (yet).

For those interested in early Ford history, I highly recommend the Pate book, it is well organized and written. :)
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Kerry » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:05 pm

So what's an old fella to believe? :shock:

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:25 pm

Tim,
With respect, I’ve not seen a period advertisement, article or classified listing a Ford Model AC. I thought, possibly incorrectly, that the 10 hp 1904 Model A motor was the same motor as that used in the 1905 model year C.

This is a page from the October 28th, 1904 Ford Motor Company Board of Directors meeting transcript. The BOD lay out the retail price for all models Ford was producing at that time, Models A, B, C and E (delivery car), without reference to a Model AC. This is also one of the few places I’ve seen the delivery car referred to as “Model E.” The other location was in an automotive journal of the period.
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by ModelT46 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:56 pm

The comments over the years on the first Ford sold all agree it was not number one. The one that William Clay bought had long been called the first one sold.

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by CudaMan » Tue Jul 23, 2019 6:00 pm

If I recall, somewhere in the Pate book it states that the designation "AC" is a modern creation to allow collectors to tell the difference between the "early" Model As with the 8 hp engine and the later "enhanced" Model As with the 10 hp engine. Ford continued to call the later cars Model As, not even using words like "improved" or "enhanced". :)
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by CudaMan » Tue Jul 23, 2019 6:05 pm

Amusing (to me, anyway) anecdote - a few years ago I was at the car show at Hershey in the early morning and a little red runabout drove onto the show field trailing a big cloud of steam, so I assumed it was some kind of steam car. When I went over, it turned out that it was a Model A Ford with its original, marginal radiator and cooling system and was overheating badly! It did make it to its show spot and was quickly shut off. :)
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Tue Jul 23, 2019 6:40 pm

I cannot share the above enthusiasm for pates book. Maybe part of that is I’m still waiting for payment for the high school kid I had spend a couple weeks digitizing the late L D Porters extensive archives , of which he told me he couldn’t have written the book without. Deadbeat !
Putting that aside, there are mislabeled photos, there are glaring mistakes ,and those silly flow charts are some of them.
I have with me here a factory printed parts book, that lists separately parts for the model A, the model AC , and the C, breaking them down by serial number. I don’t think you need to go much further than that. It might have helped if they would have painted the AC a different color, but they probably still had maroon paint left in the bucket. They didn’t throw anything away, they threw it on the next car out the door.

Rob, your study of the BOD minutes would be a great resource. I’m just guessing that very little of that was ever looked at for the book mentioned above. How complete are those? Any big gaps? For many decades we thought that the delivery model was based on a model F chassis, because that’s what Bruce McCalley told us in the 1970s
For me, aside from the fact that factory issued literature refers to the AC model, it’s also a model that started at about serial #850 ( I think) and although it looked pretty much like the A, it had a pretty much entirely different engine , different flywheel, a LONGER WHEELBASE and much larger radiator.
I guess my gripe with pate is he is the only one I know of to call it an Enhanced Model A . I think he coined the term. That’s not history. I will bet dollars to doughnuts you will not find Enhanced model A in the BOD minutes. Once those flashy colorful graphics make it into a publication, it becomes history, whether it is or not.
I think there is still so much to learn about these amazing cars. Thanks for everyone’s thoughts above and especially Darel for the original post.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Herb Iffrig » Tue Jul 23, 2019 7:50 pm

I would like to make a clarification to what was written in the first post of this thread. As I remember it the car that William Clay Ford bought back from Europe was not the first Ford sold. It is though the oldest Ford to survive, Is that right?
If you go to youtube and search oldest Ford you will find the story which I haven't watched in a while. It says that the equal oldest Ford is in Tasmania.
Serial number 31. I think that William Ford's car is number 30. It is a case of the oldest serial number being further back in the warehouse when the first order was shipped. Does anyone know what the serial number was for Dr. Pfenning's car was? Was it 30?
I think I have heard of serial number 18 being around, but it was not sold until later.

Help me out here if anyone knows better.

Thanks

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Tue Jul 23, 2019 8:29 pm

Note the reference to serial number on flywheels. This particular piece of literature is for A,AC,C and F. From the couple of Bs I’ve seen, serial number is also on the flywheel. The wheelbase according to this, for the A and AC is identical. Either this is wrong or info on the interweb is wrong. I don’t know personally much about those. They could be both wrong, as F wheelbase varies from car to car
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Wed Jul 24, 2019 8:33 am

Let’s get down in the weeds...........

Tim, the Ford Motor Co. Board of Directors meeting transcripts are an extremely good resource to follow the early activities of Ford Motor Company. It’s interesting to read who made and seconded motions, how some items, such as the Selden Patent suit evolved (the patent holders actually invited Ford “into their tent” early on, but I believe Henry Ford and the directors saw an opportunity of “them agains us” and continued on with the suit). Also, fascinating info about the early models, such as when the switch to running boards on the C, etc. ect....

Below is a link to my copy of the minutes (courtesy of The Henry Ford, all rights apply):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u7rn9hhpvqidj ... n.pdf?dl=0

Below is a copy of page one from Trent Boggess’ ledger work. While not all cars, I believe Trent found most of the private dealer sales, and early in FMC history, there weren’t many branch stores, so I suspect these early (Models A, B and C) are probably more complete than later models when branch sales (not included with ledgers Trent found and transcribed) were a larger percent of Ford cars sold.
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One thing I’ve noticed, while the ledgers may show an early number much later in the life of sales, such as Model A #6 selling/shipping later in sequence (not a great example, later there will be a few numbers in the 100’s when Model A numbers in the 500 and 600’s are sold). However, almost never does a much higher number show in early model number sequence. As a result, a person can generally see the trend and number of cars sold by following car numbers in the ledgers.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Wed Jul 24, 2019 12:28 pm

I spent some quality time with Trents great database last evening. We must remember , Trent has stated that it is incomplete, and of course all subject to the original pencil pushers data, and also, of course , Trents accuracy of harvesting the info. So keep that all in mind when we refer to it. Many historical sources state that the good Dr Pfennig in Chicago was the first buyer, and his was serial #11. This when the FoMoCo was down to loose change in the till. I would think many of those historical accounts would have that right. Again, rewriting history Pate states that the first was sold to Dr Yates, serial #4. What we don’t know is when the actual money came in ( unless Rob uncovers that ) Where is serial # 1,2,3? Yes, #4 is the first entry on the database, but lots of questions surrounding that. For all we know Dr Yates could have said , I’ll take one of those, and needed a few more operations under his belt in order to seal the deal. And again, the good doctor Pfennig could have come in a week later, with cash on the barrelhead, and that is why the historical accounts of him being the first actual buyer.
Once you get further into the database, and again, remember that it’s incomplete, you see the dates can become very confusing. Many times serial numbers jump by hundreds, probably telling us as they got rolling, cars did indeed go in storage and first in became last out. One of the very earliest Cs went out the door many months after the Cs were being sold. I doubt they much cared.
You can see when the sales of the A, ACs, and Cs dramatically started falling off. Many serial numbers of the last Cs are not accounted for. Could they have just given up on those? It’s the same time the Ns were flying out of there, and probably all hands on deck to supply those. Again, speculation.
One of many interesting sales shown in the database is #66,#88,and #95 being sold to the largest dealer, John Wanamaker in NY. They are marked as Cs , but who knows, perhaps they were returned or faulty As, rebuilt and blown out the door to the good NY market. Again, active imagination and just speculation. All good stuff, IMHO

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Will_Vanderburg » Wed Jul 24, 2019 3:28 pm

First car built on an assembly line was the Oldsmobile Curved Dash

Now, does the above list of cars sold take into account the 12 cars purchased by William L. Hughson of San Franscisco, CA, in 1903?
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Wed Jul 24, 2019 3:48 pm

Lots of them went to San Francisco but I’m not seeing that name. Do you have a DBA ?

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Wed Jul 24, 2019 4:51 pm

W. L. Hughson was one of Fords first agents, and sometimes listed as the first. He met Henry Ford prior to the formation of FMC, and supposedly appeared as Ford and Malcomson were looking for investors in 1903. Hughson, from San Francisco, reportedly had $5,000 with him from CA investors, for the purpose of buying cars. He approached Ford about purchasing cars, and HF tried to get him to invest the 5K in newly formed FMC.

Supposedly a chat with his investors and the money was spent on cars instead. There are quite a few things about the story that don't add up, such as, if the 5K was spent on Ford cars, why was FMC cash strapped? Maybe he bought another make(s) of car at that time and later Fords?

Regardless, Hughson was an early, and successful Ford dealer. By the time of the 1906 earthquake he used inventory to help with relief efforts.

He also was responsible for finding, buying and later presenting long lost racer 999 back to Henry Ford.

He has a long and interesting Remberances at Benson Library.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Herb Iffrig » Wed Jul 24, 2019 7:39 pm

Is there a list of known 1903 Ford serial numbers?
I think I saw eight of then last year.

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Tim Rogers » Wed Jul 24, 2019 8:31 pm

The Model A may have been Ford Motor Company's first car but it wasn't the first vehicle sold by Henry Ford...
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Wayne Sheldon » Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:11 pm

The first car sold by Henry Ford was the Quadricycle, when it was two or three years old. He bought it back more than a decade later. He also sold maybe three racing cars before the Ford Motor company began officially selling cars, including I believe the 999 (someone correct me if I am wrong, I know it was sold early, but it could have been after the Ford model As were hitting the streets?). Barney Oldfield contracted Ford to build him a car I think before 1903. There were two companies formed before the Ford Motor company with the intention of manufacturing and selling cars. One of them dissolved, the other became Cadillac under Henry Leland. The one that dissolved (I am drawing a blank on the name at the moment) MAY have sold a couple cars. Records are not clear on this, although a couple photos exist of cars claimed to have been the prototypes. It is likely that at least one of them may have been sold.

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by jmc » Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:14 pm

Thank you Tim and Rob for posting the original records above - much more useful than someone's opinion. I particularly appreciate the Ford booklet with the Model "AC" reference.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by DHort » Fri Jul 26, 2019 12:15 am

That ledger is interesting. It shows car #32 sold to Bergstrom and Wild. Bergstrom is still in business as a very large automobile dealership. Aaron Rodgers is all over his billboards. However, there is no Wemack, WI. Makes one wonder where they were located. Rob also informed me that some Model K's were sold in Wisconsin before they were truly available. Is there a connection between Bergstrom and those Model K's?


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Sales Ledger

Post by Dropacent » Fri Jul 26, 2019 4:56 am

These are courtesy of Glenn Rand and the EFR. Note the ledger page # at the top. He thought it important enough to copy in 1971. It would be neat to see all these pages.
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Fri Jul 26, 2019 8:30 am

Tim,
Interesting. I have questions about the ledgers, and maybe Trent has the answer if he sees this thread. One question is, do the dates on the ledger represent the date the order is received at the factory? Is it the date the cars are shipped? Possibly the day the car arrives at the destination?

Another question is, what does the ID number to the right (shown on Trent’s database, but cut off on the two ledger pages) represent? The Yates car has the earliest entry date (date on the left, at the beginning of each ledger entry) of July 20, 1903. However, the Pfenning car has an earlier “ID” date, of July 13, but later ledger date of July 28, 1903. Is the “ID” number the day the order is received, and the number on the left the day the car was shipped? If so, which car is first, the one with an earlier “order” or the one “shipped” (or received)? One thing about it, once the first car went out the door, Ford Motor Company was off to the races, and never looked back. FMC Board minutes show the company began paying investor dividends before the end of 1903. Pretty remarkable for a start up, cash strapped business.
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Thank you for the post.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Fri Jul 26, 2019 12:00 pm

Rob, It would be great to talk to Trent, and perhaps he is monitoring this. He’s not been very active on the forum but has been on time and again. Perhaps asking an accounting professional would be helpful. Possibly the two columns is a method to reconcile things. I’m guessing the entry’s to the left were done later, but just guessing. It’s clear that Dr Ernst Pfenning made the ledger book a couple pages before Yates did. That’s good enough for me but I’m a simpleton. Also, way back in time Dr Pfenning was given credit by most when details were still fresh in minds. I hate to throw this out there, but perhaps much later revisionists didn’t like the fact that an obviously Germanic sounding person was the first paying customer of the great FoMoCo. ?? ? Nationalism and anti immigrant isn't a new idea. I’ll post something a bit later that shows a car was sold a week before either of them. How’s that for some muddy waters ?


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Fri Jul 26, 2019 12:04 pm

AND, I had a chuckle about San Francisco dealer Hughson. Can you imagine the story you could tell, if you had $5k in your pocket and decided to sell short by just buying some Fords ( or other stock ) If that money would have gone into Ford stock instead, they would have soon been paid more in dividends than what the profit would have been on the cars , and if held until the rest were bought out, it would have returned many ,many millions of dollars.

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Fri Jul 26, 2019 1:20 pm

Hughson said years later that he would have been 35 million to the better had he invested the 5K. However his investors wanted cars, not start up auto company stock. I believe he lived to be close to 100.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Fri Jul 26, 2019 1:33 pm

Sounds like he did alright. I’ve often heard otherwise, but money isn’t everything. If we could only live life backwards!


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by John Biggs » Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:04 am

Can I add some comments to the subject of the early Ford two-cylinder cars.

Firstly, a study on the agreement between Ford/Malcolmson and the Dodge Brothers shows that Dodge Brothers manufactured the two-cylinder cars and were responsible for assembly and testing of them. Ford motor company fitted the bodies and the wheels and handled the sales. Some of the early Ford drawings in the Benson Ford archives show they were drawn by Dodge Brothers.

A review of the Board Minutes from those days show that both Dodge Brothers were heavily involved in Ford Motor Company and had a major hand in the specification for the Ford Factory at Piquette.

My personal guess is that Ford 'wrote' the contribution of the Dodge Brothers out of the history books after the fallout over dividends in the early 1910s.

The 10hp motor in the Model A is the same as the motor in the 10hp Model C.

The Ford parts book has two errors in the AC and C listing. The stroke of the 10hp in both cars is 4 inches and the wheelbase of all Model As (whether early 8hp or later 10hp) is 72 inches. The Model C has a wheelbase of 78 inches.

It just shows that proof reading was just as bad in those days as it is today.

Unfortunately, such errors are copied into later publications and become accepted 'fact' for the unwary.

The three Model Cs viz #66 #88 and #95 listed in the sales records are probably Model B cars. The serial numbers fit in with the other Model Bs being shipped to Wanamaker a few days earlier, and the ID numbers on the list are in the 3000 series just like the other Model Bs. Did anybody come up with an explanation of the ID numbers?

As the owner of a 10hp Model A and a Model C, I must say that I love both cars, they go like the wind and demonstrate why the Ford Motor Company was so successful and able to thrive in its formative years.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Charles J » Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:11 am

How about the model K six cylinder

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:35 am

John,
I agree, the Wannamaker C sales do look like probable B numbers. And the I.D. numbers are in sequence, for what that’s worth. Initially I thought maybe the I.D.# had something to do with when the order came in, or time between order/testing/receiving cash and when the car shipped. However, that theory seems to blow up with several double digit I.D.#’s at the same time other numbers are in the 2 and 3 thousand range. Where’s Trent when you need him....... :D

A couple of your early Ford friends and I are up early and headed to another Model T expert’s shop to continue working on an old Ford racer:
Attachments
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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Rob » Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:51 am

Ok, now I’m curious (ID#). It seems the numbers have no rhyme or reason, except that they seem to be sequential for multiple orders/sales. For example, look at Holle mfg. on the page below from Trent’s database. Both C and B have sequential ID numbers.

FE54143A-E7CB-4A02-8D59-0A816BC312D5.png
Maybe these are some type of shipping/train/transportation assignment numbers? The Ford Canada entries at the bottom of the page have sequential ID numbers too. And I believe these would have been shipped as components vs. assembled car due to tariff considerations?


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Sat Jul 27, 2019 12:28 pm

John Biggs, I agree so much about once something gets in print. There is so much more to research than just copying ford info or propaganda. Here is a good example, when or more likely if, a correction is made , it’s in a publication months later.
E01BA21F-F0CB-4423-B6DB-61963DE96DCC.jpeg
. Re/ motor differences, from my notes of a long time ago, I have different flywheel size and number of spokes for Model A, AC, C, and F. Of course, I could be wrong and it sure wouldn’t be the first time. I do know for sure that my very early serial number F motor has several features of a C motor, so again I say nothing is cut and dry about these. In my opinion , running changes were commonplace during production and I’m pretty sure they didn’t give a whit. These early alphabet cars were just stepping stones until they hit a grand slam with the N.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Sun Jul 28, 2019 12:12 pm

Darels original post was re/ the first Ford sold. Using the info at hand, I’ve asked two accounting professionals their thoughts on those ledger pages. Both agree that the Good Dr Pfenning was the first buyer. Please note, I’m using the limited archival material I’ve seen , and both accountants said if the original running balance sheet or register ( incoming & outgoing) still survives, it would be a good way to confirm that info. My guess is that it has survived because of the many references to the till being down to just a couple hundred bucks when the first sale was made. My opinion,is that was how the original historians came to this same conclusion, but again, just an opinion and guess.
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Last edited by Dropacent on Sun Jul 28, 2019 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Sun Jul 28, 2019 12:16 pm

NOW, if the question is what was the first Ford shipped, the answer could be different.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Dropacent » Sun Jul 28, 2019 1:07 pm

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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by DHort » Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:09 pm

In reference to the two Trent Boggess databases provided by Rob,
For Model A #32, sold 8/5/1903 we have a city of Wemack, WI.
For Model C #1821, sold 1/10/1905 we have a city of Pipou, WI.

Neither of those cities exist. I am attempting to find out if they were merely crossroads that merged into a larger city, or are misspelled.

As Rob asked earlier, if we have the purpose of the ID #, maybe that would help in our search.


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Re: The First Ford sold.

Post by Adam » Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:16 pm

I would say that “Pipou” is Ripon. Someone just couldn’t read the handwriting...

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