[VAC] Re: '38 Airstream on eBay - may be authentic

[Agrijeep@xxxxxxx]

WAM:

   No, I do not have any evidence that any trailers were in fact built after 
1937, but was saying the shortage of aluminum should not have closed down the 
production line for the masonite/canvass trailers, which I image (but do not 
know) were the majority of trailers made and sold by Airstream in the 1930s. 
Any aluminum shortage would only have effected the most expensive, 
top-of-the-line Airstreams. But neither do I have any evidence that Airstream 
was not building trailers in 1938.  

    Perhaps someone in the LA area could look at Los Angeles City Directories 
for 1938, 39, 40, 41 and 42 and see if Airstream was still conducting 
business at either their 1937 address [304 West 22nd Street, Los Angeles, 
California] or another address.  That person also might check the 1938, 39, 
40 , 41 and 42 Los Angeles metro area telephone directories for an Airstream 
phone number, which was PRospect 3927 in 1937.  Unearthing these facts would 
be a first step to learning when Airstream may have shut down in the late 
1930s.    

    As Bill Scott indicates in a subsequent message, perhaps the recession of 
1938 reduced sales so much that Wally chose (or was forced) to close the 
factory in 1938.  The point I was trying to make is the '38 trailer on Ebay 
looks similar enough to the '37 Airstream masonite/ canvass models that it 
could be the following year's model, and it has an Airstream s/n tag, so I'm 
not ready to dismiss it immediately.  Granted, it could be another brand with 
an Airstream tag that was taken off a junked Airstream and used when the '38 
was sheathed with aluminum.  But I think it deserves further consideration 
and investigation.   

   It seems to me if Airstream closed down in 1937 or 1938, there would have 
been a note to that effect in the trailer trade and trailer consumer 
magazines shortly after the fact.  Does the RV Museum in the Midwest have a 
complete set of back issues for these magazines that could be reviewed?  

Fred Coldwell
VAC Archive Historian