Re: [SilverStreak] Elusive numbers

["David" <knobcreekrd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wonder if in this age of Internet and search engines if past state
registration records could be searched on a year basis and information
gleaned from there?  If the records were available you could get a length,
model and serial number or VIN of some type.  Just a thought.....no telling
where my mind will wander nest.

David

-------Original Message-------

From: Eddie
Date: 5/13/2008 8:11:46 PM
To: sslist@tompatterson.com
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