Early Ford Print plate | ||
| Ford Model T1 of 43 |  |  |
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Posted 3 years ago
JW_Mason
(11 items)
Ford printing plate, mirror image as well. Found in the wall of our house 2/13/22. My great grand parents bought this house in 1919. I dont know why there would be a printing plate here. The previous owner died in 1914, he had a daughter. Questions......
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Looks like they cut a rectangular hole in the bottom
to use as some sort of drop slot
JW_Mason, Cool. :-)
Here's that ad in print from the 23 Mar 1923, Fri edition of the El Dorado Republican (El Dorado, Kansas):
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18887876/mcclure-motor-co318-326-s-main/
The text that's missing at the bottom of your plate (because of the rectangular hole) seems to be local information, e.g., on the print ad:
McClure Motor Co.
318-326 S. Main Phone 266
Local info sounds correct, but why would it be in the wall
Was it near a window. Or whete a window used to be? Maybe they were using them as wimdow sash weights?
Vynal33,
It fell down from the knee wall attic space above. Attic access was located in my grandfather's bedroom.
The sash weights are here, I have removed several of those.
JW_Mason, I don't know if you're still wondering about this item, but I suspect that you yourself have provided the most reasonable explanation for how it came to be in the wall of your house.
That is, it probably fell down from the space behind the knee wall in the attic. The space behind an attic knee wall can be useful for storing all kinds of things.
Considering that we can fix the date of that advertisement to a fairly precise point in time using the El Dorado, KS newspaper print, whoever put it there probably did so no sooner than 1923, which would put it on your family's watch.
I was curious about the price of the Ford that was 'hard-coded" on the print plate, did some more looking around, and found this:
*snip*
When the Model T was first released, it carried a price tag of $850. The assembly line resulted in reduced production costs so Ford chose to pass the savings along to his customers. He later lowered his price to as low as $260 for the basic no-frills model.
*snip*
https://blog.retroplanet.com/page/7/
I found more Ford ads with varying prices, including this one that can also be dated fairly precisely (June 8, 1924):
*snip*
The 10,000,000th Ford car left the Highland Park factories of the Ford Motor Company June 4. This is a production achievement unapproached in automotive history. Tremendous volume has been the outgrowth of dependable, convenient, economical service.
Ford Motor Company
Detroit, Michigan
Runabout $265 Coupe $525 Tudor Sedan $590 Fordor Sedan $685 All prices o.b. Detroit
SEE THE NEAREST AUTHORIZED FORD DEALER
The Touring Car
$295
F.O.B. Detroit
Demountable Rims
and Starter $85 extra
*snip*
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bruckzone/9003131525
Wow good info as always KERAMIKOS
Keramikos ..awesome information.
By the way...
F.O.B. Detroit means free on board, referring to shipping charges. In this case, if you bought the car in Detroit there would be no shipping charged, but if it was another place..shipping charges would be added.
dav2no1, Thanks for the explanation about F.O.B.
I myself had to look it up, but failed to include it here. :-)
I was going down some interesting rabbit holes earlier today related to objects found in the walls, etc., of old houses, and old printing plates are probably some of the more safe, inoffensive things. >8-0
JW_Mason, Just following up on this a bit more.
You said that the attic access was in your grandfather's bedroom. It sounds like this was when he was still a boy or a young man.
I don't know if your town had its own newspaper, but if it did, eventually the paper would throw out something like this printing plate (such as when the price changed). A printing plate with a picture of an automobile on it would be very attractive acquisition to a young boy, and young boys are not averse to rummaging around in trash bins.
However, eventually the printing plate's charms might have palled, and it was relegated to storage behind the knee wall. If the printing plate had been on top of an overstuffed open box, it would be very easy for it to fall off if the box was jostled. Voila. Now the printing plate is in the wall.
Or, somebody deliberately put it in the wall. That's been known to happen.
JW_Mason, I'm extrapolating from your post with the picture of the car your great-grandparents bought for your grandfather when he graduated in 1932. He was probably about nine years old when that printing plate was in active use (1923).
Fun stuff. Grandpa went straight to UM after HS. Ended up getting married and had 1 son, my dad. When I removed the skirting on the porch I found grandpa had written his name and the wall, once the J was backwards. Jack is the nickname for John.
JW_Mason, That had to have been a touching surprise to see that your grandfather had written his name on the wall. <3
As to your speculation that your grandfather might have gotten the printing plate through working at either a local print shop or a Ford dealership: quite possible.
It's also possible that he did that when he was rather young by modern standards, because a lot of the laws regulating child labor weren't enacted until the late thirties and even forties.
That's why you see bellhops in old movies who don't even look adolescent, let alone adult.
It was, I was always curious about that space when I was a boy. Great Aunt B wouldn't allow us to go in there or upstairs in the house. I did learn that there was a newspaper printed here in town. The city museum is literally within eye sight of our back door. More research to do.
As it turns out, there was one newspaper that seems almost tailor-made to have carried that Ford advertisement (The St. Clair Republican [Years of publication: 1856 to 1925]).
https://roadsidethoughts.com/mi/saint-clair-xx-saint-clair-localpapers.htm