Morning coffee

[RICH MUISE]

Never saw this before..........On a trip to Oklahoma this past weekend in my 05 Subaru outback, I noticed my trip odometer was changing from displaying the miles to flashing "ILL 5". It would flash for about 15 seconds then go back to displaying miles and repeat every minute or so. It finally stopped after about 1/2 hour. I called the dealer and the service guy said he'd never heard of it, but he'd check. Came back on the phone after a few minutes and told me it was telling me my adjustable dash light brightness switch needed cleaning or replacing! I had no clue a trip odometer could also be a message center.

I was out in my garage having a cigarette this morning, looking at the piles of stuff needing to be put away somewhere. I was looking at a model kit I had bought 30 or 40 years ago. It is a wooden kit of the Robert E Lee riverboat. number on the box is 181-3295. I'm guessing the 3295 was the price @32.95. I looked on EBAY out of curiousity, and they are "selling" for 350.!

[hiball3985]

COOL!!! your lucky day. are you going to build it or sell it?

[Jeff Norwell]

sell!sell!SELL!

[RICH MUISE]

You wanna buy buy buy?, lol. Yeah I'll probably try to sell it. Box has been opened, sometime when I get a minute or two, I'll see if there's a parts list so I can verify all the components are there. Opened box probably means about 1/2 of what an unopened one would sell for, but that's cool. Of course, it's Ebay.....they can ask anything they want.
What I'd really like to sell is the 200+ die cast collectables (mostly Texaco). Got no place to display them, they've been in storage since I moved from Colorado in '03. Those Texaco die casts were really a hot commodity in the 80s and 90s, then died when Texaco announced they would be no longer. (Not sure what happened with that, most Texaco stations did disappear, but there are still some here and there.)
The annual die cast bank trucks that Texaco did were very very hot for years, especially the secondary market for the first 3 or 4 years model. I never did find a #1 I could afford, my wife found and bought me a #2 for 400. with no box. The guy had another with box for 650.! I saw #1s as high as 1400. A guy that worked at the local Texaco station had two of the #1s, wouldn't sell........then one day had told me he was at a garage sale and found another #1 for ONE DOLLAR!

[Ford Blue blood]

The stories of "stuff" that was trash back in the day and now worth money to collectors is never ending.  I even have my own.  My aunt and uncle had two sons, both were 10 years older then myself and my brother.  Both had similar body types so we got all their cloths after they out grew them.  Along with that came comic books.  Mind you we're talking us getting the "old" comic books in the mid through the late 1950s.  After the pile got so big they all went into the burn barrel..........to make room for the next batch!  The flow stopped in the very early 60s.  Can only imagine......

[RICH MUISE]

I guess most of us have done our part in making things valuable by throwing them out. My mom cleaned out their basement one year and tossed 3 shoeboxes full of baseball cards my brother had collected in the 50s and 60s. Amoung other greats, he told me he had at least 15 Ted Williams cards, including a rookie.
And the valuable pieces of art that were found at garage sales or Goodwill.......when my wife's cousin moved here from Phoenix with her two truckloads of mostly boxes of stuff, much of it from her mom and dad's house after they passed, she spent months and months whittling down the stacks of boxes. (we still have a spare room full of stuff). We were getting ready for a big garage sale because of combining 3 households into one. She had a stack of old framed stuff she couldn't decide to donate, garage sale, or trash. I looked at it and got it pretty much divided up into the 3 groups except for one small piece. Old simple framing, typical of the 50-60s, but looked like an original, exceptional watercolor to me. I pulled it apart and inside was a news clipping from 1971 about the artist's passing with notes about different collections and musems she was in! Louise Wilheim Smith. I googled her and she is indeed a well respected artist of the early to mid 1900's s and is in several museums. The article I read on her even said most of her work was mini-sized, ours is just a 5x5. Still sitting on a shelf in the garage, but at least it'll eventually end up in a well deserved resting place........a far sight better than the dumpster it almost got in.

[djfordmanjack]

oh those collectables...they are driving us crazy. but then - if nobody had kept the stuff we love so much today- like our 57 Fords, where would we be without people like that ? especially the 'younger' generation like me, who never had the chance to experience those cars and things first hand. I am glad people held on to their treasures and kept them for us to enjoy NOW !
Isn't that a good excuse for collecting random useless piles of junk like most of us do....haha....

I have been collecting....so : more storage area is needed. I did a quick job while browsing the local classifieds. what really still amazes me is how my little 15ft German 60s Ford wagon can take the 10 ft trusses of this shelter in one piece, tailgate closed ? and all of the rest of the hardware and canopy as well....these were good cars ! Practical and great.

[RICH MUISE]

That's cool. I love that little wagon. Unfortunatly, here in Texas, those types of shelters do well to make it thru one summer. If the sun doesn't get it, the wind will.

[djfordmanjack]

that is very true, Rich ! the sun is somewhat less intense here up north of course, but I put the shelter under 2 huge trees and in the shade of my neighbors 1929 wooden house. that way it should be somewhat protected from storm and sunrays.
Good thing is we have a local company here producing HD cloth and vinyl material for truck trailer canopies, sunroofs, awnings and the like. They often run the end of a certain color production and the few hundred yards of leftovers get sold cheap at their local facility. it is the stuff that will easily last for decades and I would be replacing the canopy on the little grey shelter with that if it was damaged soon. Anyways this is only a quick fix, so I don't have to park any of my project cars outside this summer.

[djfordmanjack]

the problem is, that I parked one of my project cars on the 'porch' area of the house during winter. now it is getting warmer already and I have to remove the 'porch' car, so we can use our benches, table & BBQ again in spring....hahaha

[RICH MUISE]

If that two story dark brown house is your neighbors' house, you've got some great neighbors to let you put the shelter there!
Speaking of neighbors, yesterday a gorgeous 29 roadster pulled up on our driveway. It was my next door neighbor bringing his latest acquisition to show me! He had just bought a 57 Chev sedan delivery a few months ago. He's restoring one of his two 67 Mustangs right now. Later yesterday, I brought him some info on speedhut gages and he was in process of moving one of his 3 Corvettes out of his 5 car garage to make room for the roadster. Nice living next to a car guy!! He's also been remodelling their house, so we've got alot in common.........except he's got money and I don't, lol.

[djfordmanjack]

Rich, we do have a good relation among our neighbors. It is great to have similar minded poeple around. We try to really be tolerant with each other. my shelter is not directly leaned against their house, their narrow driveway is inbetween. I didn't oppose when my neighbor asked me to errect their (permanent) steel carport against my fence. so he didn't either. it is always take and give. my other neigbor is into loud 2 stoke motorcycles and sometimes he 'has to' test run them for quite some time, even on Sundays. but he doesn't do that early in the morning nor late at night, so then again it's ok for us to have some friends around and making a BBQ with some laughing and hollering going on, or even have an American car builder and a bunch of 2 dozen car guys and their cars on the property for Sunday morning brunch....haha.
also our properties are of mixed living and commercial area, so it is also legal to handle that kind of stuff. We still try not to abuse the rules or annoy our neighbors too much. 

It must be great to have such a dedicated car guy for your neighbor ! Sounds like a bunch of cool cars and how big is his GARAGE

[fdlrc]

Fresh cup in hand, I thought I'd post this picture; any guess as to what movie?

[terry_208]

The sloop of the street reminds me of "Bullit". IDK

[RICH MUISE]

Took the words right out of my mouth. hilly city = San Fran = Bullit.
Les, you need to adjust the color on your TV, lol