Patent plate stamped number significance?

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NealW
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Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by NealW » Sun May 22, 2022 9:36 am

I'm currently restoring a late 1911 touring car that has a November 1911 engine serial number, which matches the title. The original firewall still has what is likely the original patent plate shown in the picture below. This number is roughly 2000 higher than the engine serial number. Does anyone know what this number signifies?

The body also has the Baudette serial number stamped into the wood on the frame underneath where the front cushion is located. Does anyone know if this number can be correlated with any remaining records? I am just trying to learn what I can about the car.

Thanks,

Neal
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patent plate picture.jpg

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DanTreace
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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by DanTreace » Sun May 22, 2022 10:13 am

Here is an earlier thread on this Forum on patent plate car numbers, gives lots of info for you.

The early Ford Price List of Parts asked customers or dealer to state the model and 'Car Number' when ordering parts, later parts books didn't ask for that info. Car Numbers on patent plates were dropped by 1915.

https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/5 ... 1223639182




And, possibly the Benson Ford Research Library can provide your "Build Sheet", the early car records are avail, microfiche, but the Center can provide photocopy to you, access the request on-line from them.

Here is one for a 1910, has info on what parts were on your car as built.


1910 Build sheet.jpeg
1910 Build sheet.jpeg (87.45 KiB) Viewed 2116 times
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NealW
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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by NealW » Sun May 22, 2022 12:02 pm

DanTreace wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 10:13 am
And, possibly the Benson Ford Research Library can provide your "Build Sheet", the early car records are avail, microfiche, but the Center can provide photocopy to you, access the request on-line from them.


Thanks for the suggestion Dan. Unfortunately this T is just outside the range of serial numbers that the Benson research site says that they have production sheets for, due to the 1970 museum fire that destroyed the records for cars outside of the serial range.

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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by KWTownsend » Sun May 22, 2022 12:09 pm

Neal-
Very early in 1911 Ford no longer matched the serial number with the dash tag number. The dash tag on your car would not have the same number as the serial number.

Your car has so much original equipment (including the original non-veneered firewall) I have no reason to believe the dash tag on you car is not original. Although it was re-located to the right side of the coil box, clearly visible are the mounting holes in the firewall where it was originally mounted to the left of the coil box. You can re-anodize the plate with some Casey black brass, then re-polish the raised lettering if you'd like. Don't even think about getting a reproduction tag.

There may be a California state record that ties the dash tag number with the Registered Motor Vehicle number tag located on the windshield spacer board.

Unfortunately your car is too new for the records to be included in the Benson Archive build sheets.

Remember, fore-doors are cool!

: ^ )

Keith


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by robert daniello » Sun May 22, 2022 9:54 pm

It is interesting that the car number and motor number discrepancy seem to run both ways, the present post and some in the cited post having car numbers higher than the engine while the inspectors ticket on the cited post shows engine higher than car number. Has anyone attempted to track these? I can contribute two examples from period documents, both happen to have engine numbers higher than the car number, which is not to suggest that the opposite did not also occur.
Resized_20220522_184301_612454142422.jpeg
Resized_20220522_180322_590526961076.jpeg

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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by KWTownsend » Mon May 23, 2022 10:11 am

Robert,
I have data on a limited sample of 1911 and 1912 cars, and there is no rhyme or reason in regard to the correlation of serial numbers to patent plate numbers. Sometimes the serial number is higher, sometimes the patent plate number is higher. I even made a graph overlapping the two sets of numbers. The lines are up and down and cross each other. I'm away from my computer today, but would be happy to share numbers privately in a day ot two.

: ^ )

Keith


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by NealW » Mon May 23, 2022 10:24 am

Does anyone have any information regarding the Baudette body numbers, particularly if it can be tied to when it was made?

Also, I was trying to learn about Baudette company but did not find much online about them. It appears that they were bought by Fisher body eventually. Is that correct?

Thanks,

Neal

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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by DanTreace » Mon May 23, 2022 10:59 am

Here is information on that company, the O.J. Beaudette company, from the webpage of Coachbuilt.



http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/b/beaudette/beaudette.htm
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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by Original Smith » Mon May 23, 2022 11:21 am

That is really interesting! My 1913 large patent plate has a lower number than the engine number. It came on the original firewall of my car over 60 years ago. 198329/212526.


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by robert daniello » Mon May 23, 2022 11:36 am

It may be just as interesting even if we can't find any pattern to it...

Anyway, I'll throw in one more. I have a car # 949xx, engine 105xxx (still on right side of the block) and radiator #963xx. I believe all three components have always been together, known history since '56, although in 110 years there's always a chance which is why the old documents are so nice to see.

PS. I believe it is a Beaudette body as well, I don't have that number readily at hand.


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by robert daniello » Mon May 23, 2022 11:41 am

Found the body number B (upside down) 52559


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by ModelT46 » Mon May 23, 2022 12:04 pm

Because of the "B" series engine numbers used on some 1912 Fords (1912 model year srated in 1911), the car number and the engine numbers no longer matched after the start of the 1912 model year in 1911. There has been much noted about this in past postings.


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by robert daniello » Mon May 23, 2022 3:11 pm

Still it seems odd that there appear to be documented examples where either number could be higher (and by many thousands).

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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by Matt in California » Mon May 23, 2022 5:37 pm

Neal,
The number on the brass plate was registered with the DMV in California in 1921:
F0D119CD-9577-4465-9F3F-84E23858049B.jpeg
Is this helpful for you. How does it change the conversation?

Matt


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by NealW » Mon May 23, 2022 7:11 pm

Matt in California wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 5:37 pm
Neal,
The number on the brass plate was registered with the DMV in California in 1921:

Is this helpful for you. How does it change the conversation?

Matt
Hi Matt,

I have a screen grab of the 1921 California DMV records showing the original owner of my 11T along with the correct engine S/N listed, so California used the engine serial and not the car number.

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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by KWTownsend » Tue May 24, 2022 12:10 pm

Neal-
To my knowledge, there are no Beaudette body manufacturing records.
That being said, I have data that correlates 1911 and 1912 engine serial numbers to Beaudette body numbers.
Interestingly enough, the same "variations" that occur with the serial number and patent plate numbers (higher numbers/lower numbers) occur with the serial number and body numbers as well.

However, this one is easy to explain:

Beaudette (along with a handful of other body manufacturing companies) made bodies for Ford. Each body was numbered by the manufacturer with there own numbers, usually proceeded by a letter. B for Beaudette, H for Hayes, W for Wilson, etc. Bodies arrived at the Piquette plant and were stored in the body inventory storeroom. At the time, Ford automobile production was limited to about 100 cars per day. As cars were assembled, bodies were removed from the body inventory storeroom for mounting on the chassis. But here's the deal: According to Trent Boggess, the body inventory storeroom at Piquette has ONE set of doors. That means the body inventory was essentially on a last-in / first-out inventory basis. This explains why sometimes a car with a higher serial number has a body number that is lower than that of another car.

Case in point, the Beaudette body number of your car is 315 higher than the Beaudette body number on my car, yet the serial number on your car is 1619 lower than my car. That serial number difference would indicate your car was assembled about two weeks before mine, yet the body on your car is of later production than mine.

One other thing I can tell you is that on earlier Beaudette bodies, the bead around the doors was a separate nailed-on trim piece. Sometime after Beaudette body B-21243 was made (Pete Ratledge's car) and before B-22917 was made (Will Ravez's car) the bead was changed to a corner bead and was rolled into the sheet metal instead of a separate nailed-on piece.

: ^ )

Keith


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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by NealW » Wed May 25, 2022 12:40 pm

Thanks for the information Keith. My body number is B-19243 and does have nailed on beads on the rear doors as you indicated by the serial range before the bead was incorporated into the door skin.

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Re: Patent plate stamped number significance?

Post by KWTownsend » Wed May 25, 2022 1:49 pm

yep...
Chad body number.JPG

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