[SilverStreak] Elusive numbers

["Eddie" <Eddie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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