Re: [SilverStreak] Elusive numbers

["Carolyn Frederick" <hown@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It would be nice if someone had the financial statements.  You can bet in 
there somewhere is a record of units produced.  But I'm sure that's 
impossible too.

Oh well, it was a thought.

Carolyn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eddie" <Eddie@Huffstetter.com>
To: <sslist@tompatterson.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 7:11 PM
Subject: [SilverStreak] Elusive numbers


> Carolyn,
> Generally the serial numbers mean nothing. All the orphaned brands were 
> hand made and therefore generally no two are the same. On my old Spartan 
> the numbers are 33-49-967 which would mean 33', 1949, unit 967, but they 
> did not start at zero. On the Streamline motor homes mine read 1966 5050 
> and 1966 5053. We think the numbers started at maybe 5001 and maybe end 
> with 5080 in 1966 as there was no 1967, but then some of the units on 
> Tom's registry make no sense as some 1964 units have a number after 1965 
> and 1966 units. We are thinking date of sale prevailed. But who knows?
>
> My Boles Aero fifth wheel numbers made no sense either. Then I talked to 
> Janet Boles and she said she just started with a number which just 
> continued and ascended until the end. So the number was just a number she 
> assigned and recorded in a ledger. Unending, she concedes that you could 
> say each year had a first number and therefore a last number for any given 
> year.
>
> The Streamline trailer numbers used to make sense, then they became 
> meaningless and series of numbers changes format thru the years. Similarly 
> my 79 SS Supreme Lux Liner has sensible meaningful numbers, but generally 
> the numbers on SS trailers simply mean nothing, just being assigned 
> numbers recorded on a ledger. SS changed their numbers format over the 
> years from the first Clipper.
>
> Perhaps the worst are the SS motor homes. Other than conjecture, nobody 
> seems to know how many were made and even how many years if more than one. 
> It may be all were manufactured in 75 and titled as 75 and 76. Seems the 
> conjecture is always 12, 15, 17, or 25 were made, but who knows? I talked 
> 25 years ago to a SS employee about all this, and he did not know. Same 
> for Streamline and that employee who is still living and in Florida. He 
> simply does not know, and never thought about it.
>
> What little solution is only going to be available thru efforts such as 
> Tom Patterson's. He has a registry of his interest, which is the 
> Streamline Motor Home. He makes great effort, like on this Pismo Beach 
> Rally wherein he will hope to photograph and record three more units he 
> thinks he can locate.
>
> If all of us on this list would begin to compile to a similar registry for 
> our Silver Steak units, we would eventually cause an exposure of 
> information. At the very least we perhaps would begin to learn a series of 
> numbers falls within certain years. There is a faint registry of Boles 
> Aero units that starts to reveal the order of the ledger. You can see how 
> a registry of all the brands could reveal information rapidly being lost.
>
> Perhaps the worst of all of this is that there was no standard for serial 
> number placements on any of the orphaned brands to my knowledge. The 
> serial numbers are not consistently placed, may be anywhere, and may be 
> nowhere. My 48 Vagabond 262 has a sensible revealing number on the large 
> rear trunk door, but not on the frame. My 52 Glider Albatross only has the 
> number stamped on the tongue, a removable A-Frame bolt-on. Change that and 
> the number could be lost. My 46 Spartan has no number anywhere, and no 
> typical tag removed with the reveal of holes that once might have held it. 
> My SS motor home has tags on both sides, by the drivers window and by the 
> entry door, but the 79 SS has on the one tag an nothing stamped on the 
> frame. None of it makes any sense. Sometimes little scraps of paper in a 
> drawer reveal a number found nowhere else. There were also title issues 
> where state title number reassignments caused the loss of actual unit 
> numbers. Then there is the factor of when it was made versus when it was 
> sold and that causes additional serial number conflicts.
>
> Wouldn't it be nice to have the ledger for each brand of these orphaned 
> RV's!
> -Eddie-
> Houston, TX
>