Carlton World

9/11/22

Weekend Wrap-up

It was a heck of a weekend for collecting....Started Friday Sept. 9th with the Pacific Coast Gas Bash held at Fred Stokes place in Santa Rosa Calif...Then Sunday 9/11/22 I hit the French antiques Market at the Marin Civic Center parking lot...Usually I go to the Sacramento Antiques Fair the second Sunday of the month...but my friend Pat Nester offered me an important motorcycle poster and I wanted to go buy it at his home in San Francisco...so decided to forgo Sacramento and the French market would give me my Sunday antiques show fix...found nothing zeroed out...But went to a very nice church afterwards about 3 minutes away...Bay Marin Church...nice visit friendly people...and they had a taco feed after service...Afterwards stopped at Urban Ore in Berkeley before heading over to Pat's....

Walker's Billiard Parlor sign purchased at Sept 2022 Pacific Coast Gas Bash

Advertising token for Walker's Billiard Parlor purchased on eBay post gas bash

Back to the Friday Gas Bash...I was up at 4am...got there 6:00am with a flashlight...Really I wouldn't call it a bang-up show....it was good...but I think the heat wave Northern California had that week put a dampner on it...not as big a crowd I expected and seemed like there should have been more dealers...Nevertheless it was fun....and I did make one find from renown sign dealer Bob Porter from Cypress, CA near Disneyland...He always lays out his whole arsenel of great signs on tarps on the ground...I spotted this billiard parlor sign at 6:20 A.M....twenty minutes after I got there....but I didn't buy it for another hour...the price was more than I could swallow...I came back later and made an offer...Bob is such a gentleman he just calmly said "Carlton I paid more than that, it came out of a collection"...I went away for a bit and decided to just go get it...Where in the world would I ever find another billiards sign from Chico...There are a lot of collectors of historical northern California signs and I figured I could find a buyer if I decided to sell it...

As typical at these early morning shows, I'm not a morning person and was still waking up...So I bought it in a bit of a fog...But as I came to walking the show I realised what a great piece it was and I was glad I bit the bullet...It's what's called a tacker...my first one...as they are light weight metal and theroeticaly you can hang them up with tacks...That's nice and all but I think I want the edges protected so I plan to get it framed...a black frame with set it off well I think...It's one of those buys the more I look at it the more I'm glad I got it...Researching it was remarkably easy...I even found a photo of the inside of the billiard hall...

So on to the motorcycle poster...Sunday 9/12/22 I headed to Pat's posh apartment in San Francisco...A friend of his got this poster in Michigan...where the race was...I'm always interested in early motorcycle posters but this one is for the national championship...The Jack Pine Run was the championship for enduro racing for the United States from 1923 until the early 1960's...Endurance racing is a different ball game than track racing...very demanding riding thru backroads....forests and waterways...very rugged...I have antique motorcycle race posters, which are rare...but this was a chance to add enduro racing in my collection...A photo of Oscar Lenz is featured on the poster. He was one of the founders of the race and won it seven times...

So while I was at Pat's he pulls out this killer little powerboat program that I had to have...For the uninitiated...pre 1920 powerboat racing programs don't surface often...and I was real glad to add this to my powerboat collection


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End of Sept. 2022 Gas Bash Weekend Coverage

Latest Pickup August 25th 2022 - Powerboat Stained Glass Panel

Here's my latest greatest...Now this would be a perfect example of you just don't know what's out there...never would I have imagined such a piece...it's my first stained glass in 35 years collecting...The older gentleman I got it from was the Detroit suburb of Garden City...His daughter acted as my contact person. He was told it came from the legendary Gar Wood mansion on Grayhaven Island...that would be Gar Wood the legendary Detroit industrialist and world champion speed boat racer...However...as exciting as that story was...based on the T 41 bow number the story just didn't add up...If someone was going to make a stained glass of Gar Wood in a speed boat it would be of him in one of the ten Miss America boats he won the world championship with nine times 1920-1933. His $3,500.00 price was based on it being Gar Wood...so I tactfully sent the email below:

Detroit Suburb of Garden City, from whence our stained glass hails.
Sat in basement 40 years after purchased in Detroit antiques store

Hi…Carlton Hendricks here…I’m a collector of early powerboat racing and really like your stained glass…However I cannot connect the T-41 on the boat with Gar Wood…Gar Wood won all his championship races with the Miss America boats…there were ten of them…all with Miss America followed by the roman numeral of its linage…i.e. “Miss America VII…Miss America VIII…etc….I can’t find any boat titled T-41 associated with Gar Wood…So it’s a mystery to me…nevertheless I’m making a $REDACTED$ offer as it’s still great looking…
Kindly –carlton

SportsAntiques.com

The sellers daughter called and said as much thanks for the offer but her dad felt it was worth much more than my offer...I asked her to find out what the least he would take...She came back with $3,000.00...I was leaving shortly for a vacation to L.A. for the Glendale show and Long Beach Flea...and 3g's would be a vacation killer...so I said as much I'd revisit it after I got back...So I hit L.A. hard over the weekend....found nothing...so Sunday afternoon I texted an offer...Seller countered...and I re-countered and we made the deal...To get to the bottom of its history I enlisted the help of renown hydroplane historian Leslie Field.

Sent: Tue 8/23/2022 8:01 PM

Leslie Field
Hydroplane Historian
www.lesliefield.com

Hi Leslie…
Carlton Hendricks here…I just got the attached stained glass work featuring a powerboat that appears to be from about the 1920’s…the bow number on the boat is T41…I’m hoping to ID the boat with that…

The stained glass came the Detroit area…the seller purportedly bought it in an antiques store 35-40 years ago and it was in his basement since then as I understand…the seller was told it was salvaged from the Gar Wood Mansion in Gray Haven Island…after it burned I assume…and the pilot is purportedly Gar Wood…However I cannot find any boats associated to Gar Wood with the T41 bow number…Q. Would you have any insight into the identity of the boat?

I found a photo of a boat with the bow number T-46….see attached…Q. What do those numbers signify?...

The stained glass should arrive in a few days…I will take better photos then…

Thanks so much for any help you could be….
Most Kindly -carlton

Only took a couple hours to hear back...

Sent: Tue 8/23/2022 10:11 PM

Carlton,
This one was easy. T-41 was Musketeer II, owned and raced in 1923 and 1924 by Horace Dodge. I didn’t notice a direct Gar Wood connection. The numbers on the bow are just racing numbers designating the racing class. “T” was the prefix for the senior level of motorboat racing at the time. Dodge won several races with this boat. Dodge was a rival of Gar Wood and raced against him with this boat. Musketeer II sank in June 1925. I have no info whether it was salvaged or its later fate.
Cheers,
Leslie

Leslie Field
Hydroplane History
Website: www.hydroplanehistory.com
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1558238831117830/
Vancouver, BC Canada

The three biggest names in early powerboats in the United States were Chris-Craft…Hacker Craft…Dodge…and Gar Wood…all from the Great Lakes/Detroit region…There were some very formidable Canadian boat makers on the other side the lake as well… Ditchburn…Greavette…and Minett to name a few…not that I know much about them…Horace Dodge Jr was the son of Horace Dodge Sr. who with his brother John started Dodge Brothers Automobiles…Jr. was a party animal with a life that reflected it…Jr.’s Dodge Boat company was killed off by the depression in 1936…his father was one of the biggest yachtsmen of the day…had a whole string of huge ones….

At this point we can only speculate the who what why this stained glass panel was produced…Horace Jr. could have had it made but seems like someone of his means would have ordered something bigger…Perhaps it was a gift someone had made for him…and it hung in his den…The art quality of the boat and faces are so well defined I would almost bet it was done by a professional artist…As well the details of the boat are too exact…I see two air intake cowls above the engine compartment area…I clearly see two tie down cleats…a cooling water discharge port of some sort…what looks like a bow light at the front…between the tie down cleats is some kind of object I can’t make out…almost look like a fishing rod holder…but seemingly in the wrong place…The shadowing of the coats the two men are wearing is so well done I would speculate it would take a professional artist to execute…If it was given as a gift…it would likely have been from some wealthy playmate who would have likely had it made at the top stained glass shop in Detroit…which appears to have been the Detroit Stained Glass Works on West Fort Street…Once the book I ordered Discovering Stained Glass in Detroit by Nola Huse Tutag arrives perhaps will help I.D. the artist…

The best Dodge Boats history site in the world is http://www.thatoldboat.com/Dodge-Boa ...-Factories-Det ...there are tons of photos of the boats and factory from back in the day. The operator/owner Steve Martini has done a great job of preserving the history of the company...along with first hand accounts of pioneer research trips on foot to locate the buildings...don't miss it...

END - Latest Pickup August 25th 2022 - Powerboat Stained Glass Panel