amazing what you find when you have time

[fv1609]

It is easy to forget that most documents in a collection are not gifted but traded, swapped or purchased at the going rate or sometimes beyond that rate.

Consider a recent ebay sale of a Catalogue of War Office Publications 1947 that started at £24 then sold for £360. I was not the purchaser, but once it is handed over for free circulation then the document becomes largely worthless. 

 

[Mark Ellis]

2 hours ago, fv1609 said:

It is easy to forget that most documents in a collection are not gifted but traded, swapped or purchased at the going rate or sometimes beyond that rate.

Consider a recent ebay sale of a Catalogue of War Office Publications 1947 that started at £24 then sold for £360. I was not the purchaser, but once it is handed over for free circulation then the document becomes largely worthless. 

 

@fv1609
Dearest Clive, as you know I've concentrated on the Workshop and User manuals, to help people keep their FV out of the scrap yards, and to use the machine correctly. It took 3 years to gather all the Stalwart files, although some are a bit rough. And they're all now declassified, and freely available on my website.

But Consider these two below, one from a dealer and one from a museum. I'd guess that one was probably obtained by a free FOI request response, whilst copies from the other place are being sold after someone donated some stuff which included a single clean copy of this manual.

Can you see any difference in these two, despite a significant price difference?

Making documents publicly available doesn't affect a price for the collector who wants an original document. Although that gets buggered when museums pretend that they're selling original documents, rather than scanned and printed copies.

There's also the issue of documents being accessible for researchers. I know that the Salamander was a Private Venture by Alvis and Pyrene, because an FVRDE report tells me so. Which means I can ignore the incorrect information that one book author published, and another author copied. 😉

 

[fv1609]

The buff one is original, about 25 years ago the Tank Museum had loads of these & was selling them I think for £2.

The blue one is a copy. I had occasion to sell off documents from an estate for what I thought they were worth & what I would have to pay to buy them from the MOD as at the time I was a registered customer with my own UIN. The prices were lower than those being asked for the reprints.

[Mark Ellis]

3 hours ago, wally dugan said:

MARK  a interesting idea but who is going to do this and why should they may be a national museum l do think so a few months ago a well known publisher  of military documents contacted me about a document he had seen a BEVERLEY   wanted to know about it  he was told that apart from the one he had seen l knew of two others l suggested he contact the people who disposed of the documents by giving them away  if a organization that is entrusted to preserve the history of the british army  has so little regard for these important documents WHY would l hand over my collection to any body to me it is beyond price  

@wally dugan

Dear Wally,

I've just spent the afternoon scanning in a civilian workshop manual for the Bedford TL, which a member of my Facebook TL group loaned to me. It will be going back in the post soon.

I've scanned that in to help people keep their TLs out of the scrap yards. Manuals can be impossible to find, and some ask stupid prices for what they do hold.

I've offered. If a volunteer doesn't scan it in, then there's every probability that it will never be scanned in. I've recently finished scanning a box of photos for the Alvis Archive Trust, a charitable arm of the Alvis Owner's Club. Scanning these in gives their magazine editor instant access to images that would possibly never have seen the light of day again if I had not been asked to scan them in and agreed. More photos to come later in the year.

My website now has a slowly growing Vehicle Manuals Library. One retired garage owner donated 45 kg of manuals to my VML, which I'm slowly scanning in, between scanning in Alvis manuals, etc.

As I've seen with archives in the UK, France and Sweden whilst doing my Stalwart research - you ask for a copy, and they charge you for a poor collection of photos of the open manual, instead of scanning the book in with pride in the work.

I managed to find an A3 documents scanner, on ebay for £5 or £10. I can't remember which. And I ended up with two scanners as he wanted them to be used, instead of thrown away. One is currently on free loan, to help someone scan in some Alvis car manuals.

The A3 scanner allows me to scan both sides of a page instantly, along with scanning all the A3 pages of any EMER, but also does A4 and A5 just as easily.

The FVRDE reports can reveal all sorts of information, to confirm dates, or vehicles, etc.

But if these reports are given to an archive or museum, then there's every chance of spending the rest of their days sat in a corner, collecting dust because they're badly catalogued and no body understands what they are.

[wally dugan]

I thought it was time to tidy up my boxes of photographs it has taken three days to sort out and l have gone through them with a fine tooth comb and got rid of most these were from all over the world showing all types of military vehicles and down to just BRITISH military. l have found photos of friends long gone boxes of kodak black and white here are just two out of twenty from the trail of the AUSTIN GIPSY box l will post some of the others

 

[Mark Ellis]

5 minutes ago, wally dugan said:

I thought it was time to tidy up my boxes of photographs it has taken three days to sort out and l have gone through them with a fine tooth comb and got rid of most these were from all over the world showing all types of military vehicles and down to just BRITISH military. l have found photos of friends long gone boxes of kodak black and white here are just two out of twenty from the trail of the AUSTIN GIPSY box l will post some of the others

...

My friend, Michael Green is ex REME and drove many vehicles whilst working for FVRDE in the 60s. He's lost a lot of memory after a stroke, but recalls being the passenger in the Gipsy whilst there were charging it around the test track.

The vehicle rolled, again, this time finishing upside down against a tree. The driver couldn't move due to pain, and thought he had blood on his arm, which turned out to be something food related that they had in the vehicle. They were both stuck in the front of the vehicle. But Michael had a wet head, which turned out to be battery acid dripping on his head. He had a bald spot there forever more. Luckily, there were other vehicles going around the test track, which came to their aid again.

This is Mick, with the air conditioned Land Rover Ambulance, that he drove in Far North Queensland during Tropical trials in 1966.

 

[wally dugan]

some one asked about TONY BUDGE well l visited a number of times and got on well with him just a couple of photo's of what a visit was like the numbers were just like a visit to ASHCHURCH

[fv1609]

Wally I never realised the collection was so extensive for just one vehicle type. I have his sales leaflets for Pigs & Shorlands, any pics of those? I wonder how many Shorlands he had? The most I ever saw was at Clive Evans Ordnance at Sturminster Marshall.

[wally dugan]

CLIVE  he had stuff all over the place around RETFORD even on GAMSTON AIRFIELD l might have a picture of one of his pigs l will find it my visits were work it was huge there was armour from  all over  

[Mark Ellis]

50 minutes ago, fv1609 said:

Wally I never realised the collection was so extensive for just one vehicle type. I have his sales leaflets for Pigs & Shorlands, any pics of those? I wonder how many Shorlands he had? The most I ever saw was at Clive Evans Ordnance at Sturminster Marshall.

@fv1609 Budge bought something like 400 Stalwarts, and shipped them back from Germany

[Mark Ellis]

2 hours ago, wally dugan said:

some one asked about TONY BUDGE well l visited a number of times and got on well with him just a couple of photo's of what a visit was like the numbers were just like a visit to ASHCHURCH

 

Wonderful photos, @wally dugan

I don't suppose you managed to capture the 4 Austrian Stalwarts, that Budge bought off Richard. They had a combined side and indicator light, on the side of the cab instead of on the front. Richard is sure that he sold them on to Budge when he sold the Swedish ones to Budge, but doesn't have any photos of them.

 

[Hair Bear]

In the first picture, to the right of the queen mary looks like a halftrack, just to the right of that - is that a Gama Goat?

[David Herbert]

Yes it is a Gama Goat. There were quite a lot of them about at that time and not too expensive. I wonder what happened to them? They did have a bit of a reputation for breaking down and with no parts backup they might all be dead.

David

[Hair Bear]

I only really spotted  it because there used to be one on the Europa Truck Trial circuit in the early 2000s, I'd always thought they were experimental. An interesting creature. Thanks.

[fv1609]

Ah Wally a Foaming Pig that is a rarity indeed. It is thought that there were only two, because checking the BK ledger at Chilwell there are on two entries.  But there was a third one 27 BT 90 an ex-RUC Pig formerly 2991 OI. I wonder which one that is?

[wally dugan]

MARK in those days these were a common sight so no  just to many but here is one of goats

Edited June 11 by wally dugan

[wally dugan]

odd bits the motorcycle pages are not complete with no indication of from what publication

Edited Sunday at 10:52 AM by wally dugan
pressed wrong key

[wally dugan]

The second ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS at TIDWORTH 1930. The envelope is of interest but what was inside more so

[wally dugan]

In side the envelope were a series of photographs of one of the first BEDFORD MK fitted with the ATLAS crane during the trials

[Mark Ellis]

1 hour ago, wally dugan said:

In side the envelope were a series of photographs of one of the first BEDFORD MK fitted with the ATLAS crane during the trials

Wonderful stuff  @wally dugan <3 
No reflectors 

[10FM68]

21 minutes ago, Mark Ellis said:

Wonderful stuff  @wally dugan❤️
No reflectors 

And mixed rubies at the rear - even on an apparently brand new vehicle.  

[Mark Ellis]

22 hours ago, 10FM68 said:

And mixed rubies at the rear - even on an apparently brand new vehicle.  

@10FM68, somebody else's photo - but we had the same on the Stollies, in the 80s. Large indicator and small brake / tail