Graveyard #29 - Buick crash

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Jesper Hvid
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#16

Post by Jesper Hvid »

Bottom post of the previous page:

I think the host made that insane offer because he bought the story about the steering wheel. He had to secure the framed photos, because they go together with the real antique, a one-of-a-kind. He sort of broke the provenance by acquiring the one, and not the other, so the seller has to sell the wheel to him, also, because the items go together. The wheel alone is a piece of trash, that only becomes an antique and a unique piece of motor racing memorabilia, when the set is intact. Unless the wheel has been lost, the only viable buyer is the host. He still needs to work out who the driver was, as his own family apparently doesn't know(!!!), and that's dodgy as hell. The host will certainly make a bundle on that deal, if the wheel turns up, and he is able to create the document on it all. He has to, as the bric-a-brac is worth fuck-all without any proper provenance. And if you sell family heirlooms of that caliber out of your garage, to lunatics, you're quite frankly pissing on your own ancestry.

And the pics, maybe they aren't even orig. photos. Maybe some of them are serially produced postcards, as per the era's morbid obsession with Disaster Photography. Hell, WE found them. And I'm morbid like Celtic Frost.

But the fact remains, these two bozos are NOT discussing the pic to ID, they are discussing the wreck pic not properly shown, a different one. The producer/editor highlighted the wrong photo in the vignette! Probably because he doesn't really give a toss.

Odds are, they have zero clue what they are even talking about. If we work it out, and host Cranky McCrank finds this topic, and he gets the wheel for another 500 smackeroos, then we would have given him what he needs to push the lot, and make a bundle. Quite ironic. Without the wheel, he has, as you say, 50 dollars' worth of old photos, only one of which hasn't been found elsewhere, by us. Unfortunately, it was the crucial one. The one they're actually talking about.

This thread is now extremely interesting! I withdraw my suggested ID, and we'll see where it goes. I think it's beyond astronomically unlikely that the name Charles Hamilton would appear twice in so narrow a field of interest, with so many similarities, so I still think I may be right, but I realise I can't call it, at this time. I just don't believe in coincidence. Mr. Jim Michels I think added the case to mmorg, so maybe we'll hear from him, sometime.
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#17

Post by Jesper Hvid »

OK, so;

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This is the one they were actually talking about, I've rotated and cropped it. I seem to see a #2. Car has left the track and landed in a ditch. Looks like a single-seater, a midget maybe? If so, we are now in the 1930s. Then the generation gap I mentioned is not relevant.
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#18

Post by Michael Ferner »

Forget Charles Hamilton. As Paul said, he was in Indiana, not California - that's many times farther apart than England and Denmark, Beyond astronomically unlikely that a Fresno car dealer races in Indiana in that time frame, just doesn't happen.

Google the name Charles Hamilton, and then pick one of the dozens that show up :haha: - it's just a name conincidence.
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#19

Post by Michael Ferner »

Jesper Hvid wrote: 2 years ago I think the host made that insane offer because he bought the story about the steering wheel. He had to secure the framed photos, because they go together with the real antique, a one-of-a-kind. He sort of broke the provenance by acquiring the one, and not the other, so the seller has to sell the wheel to him, also, because the items go together. The wheel alone is a piece of trash, that only becomes an antique and a unique piece of motor racing memorabilia, when the set is intact. Unless the wheel has been lost, the only viable buyer is the host. He still needs to work out who the driver was, as his own family apparently doesn't know(!!!), and that's dodgy as hell. The host will certainly make a bundle on that deal, if the wheel turns up, and he is able to create the document on it all. He has to, as the bric-a-brac is worth fuck-all without any proper provenance. And if you sell family heirlooms of that caliber out of your garage, to lunatics, you're quite frankly pissing on your own ancestry.
You're totally missing the point here. Nobody's going to make a killing with this stuff, the buyer's just offering the totally inflated prize because he's part of a TV production trying to produce garbage TV for a bored audience. 500 bucks for this junk means chances are another sucker will step forward and play the fool for the next episode, and that's the whole pretext. The photos are going to the bin same day.
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#20

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I can tell you're no Lovejoy... I find your lack of faith disturbing... :haha: Framed photos + steering wheel + correct provenance/ID = chi-chinggg. Anything less goes directly in the bin, I'll grant you that much.

Are you BTW sure you didn't yourself miss the point of us trying to solve a wreck photo by the use of information stemming from another? There wasn't a word spoken about the Buick wreck. They did a close-up of the wrong pic. That man's mother's uncles cannot have been dealing, let alone crashing Buicks in the pre-WW1 era. I'd say it's biologically impossible. But what are the odds of that pic being in a collage with CH the shitfaced aviator, with another CH in mmorg, having fatally crashed in a Buick of that precise era, unless the person who compiled it saw it described as someone named CH, and then mistook identity. Why is it that you insist that the Buick wreck pic is, er..., Fresnian? Do the bystanders look like your typical Fresnians of over a hundred years ago?

Topic's getting more and more interesting by the minute... :haha:
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#21

Post by Michael Ferner »

To be frank, yes, I may have missed the point. I was under the impression that this thread was about a Buick wreck in Fresno, hence my posts and remarks. Frankly, I can't be bothered into watching this TV drivel again, as I'm not really interested in its contents. But, where does it say that CH flew the plane? That would be an incredible coincidence, and even more so if that CH turned out to be the same who raced cars in Indiana. To me it seems you're counting six bananas and five red herrings, to come up with a total of nine pineapples.
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#22

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PTRACER wrote: 2 years ago Found this postcard from Fresno!

Image
E. B. Waterman is the driver racing the plane at Fresno. Except in the image presented in the TV show, the car does not have lights or fenders. Anyway, it must be the very same since I see no other Buick dealers in Fresno's newspapers, the Waterman Bros building looks identical to the ones in the TV show as well. I have no doubt they were taken at the same place, I can see familiar trees and structures in the background.

Image

The most famous of the Watermans was probably Eddie Syms Waterman. I presume E.B. Waterman is a relative? I find references to them both in newspapers, at the same time, so they are definitely two separate people. Are they brothers?
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#23

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E.B. Waterman crashed his Buick at Fresno Speedway on April 31 1910. Apparently he had just put an ironbar in front of the seat earlier that morning.

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Could that be this thing here? I do not see this on other Buick 10s or Buick 16s from the time.

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E.B. Waterman must be Edward Bentley Waterman (1869-1947). Eddie Syms Waterman did not have a brother who survived to adulthood. He himself survived until 1957. So the whole story spun by this guy about him dying in a racing accident is bullshit.
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#24

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Michael Ferner wrote: 2 years ago To be frank, yes, I may have missed the point. I was under the impression that this thread was about a Buick wreck in Fresno, hence my posts and remarks. Frankly, I can't be bothered into watching this TV drivel again, as I'm not really interested in its contents. But, where does it say that CH flew the plane? That would be an incredible coincidence, and even more so if that CH turned out to be the same who raced cars in Indiana. To me it seems you're counting six bananas and five red herrings, to come up with a total of nine pineapples.
That would certainly not be an incredible coincidence, as that was apparently one of the things he used to do, and at Fresno.

I've seperated the more important wreck by paying attention to the video, and the topic ought to be split. I don't believe the guy in the video can possibly be so stupid or full of shit to at least not get the bit right about the uncle dying after injuries from the - other - accident. The Sad Tale of the Missing Steering Wheel. But as you say, that's developed into something that's beside the topic. So, another topic should be created for that one. Here's all the hits for "Fresno" in mmorg: http://www.motorsportmemorial.org/searc ... rch=Submit

If TTP or mmorg picked up on the "postponed" death of the driver, it should be in there, somewhere.
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#26

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PTRACER wrote: 2 years ago E.B. Waterman crashed his Buick at Fresno Speedway on April 31 1910
If there's anything in this thread we can be sure is not true then it's this!
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#27

Post by PTRACER »

EB wrote: 2 years ago
PTRACER wrote: 2 years ago E.B. Waterman crashed his Buick at Fresno Speedway on April 31 1910
If there's anything in this thread we can be sure is not true then it's this!
Whoops. April 30th!
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#28

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April 31st, that was Charles Hamilton's birthday... :haha:
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#29

Post by PTRACER »

THE WHEEL WAS FOUND!

Now @Michael Ferner, do you recognise this face?

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This one is Eddie Waterman:

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#30

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Great that it did. I had a hunch it would. Money talks, you see. In fact, it babbles, all day long. Now we'll see what it'll fetch on the serious market, and then I am sure the missing info will come to light.

I disqualified myself somewhat from further commenting, by posting some bollocks, but as Ferner is silent, I'll reply.

I've three comments to the sepia photo.

It is way too bloody old to be a portrait of the seller's mother's uncle. It very probably belongs to the 1910s, as you youself pointed out.

It is the picture of the man who crashed the car in the other pic. He who as legend has it, survived, but died, and probably didn't race after that... :haha: . The steering wheel belongs to the car in that wreck pic.

The man in the pic is not cleft-chinned Eddie Waterman. I'd say it is a young brown-eyed latin or mixed-ethnic man in his twenties. That does not exclude mr. Waterman from being the driver of the car, the wreck of which, as Ferner rightly pointed out, is the real question of this topic.

Please keep us posted.
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#31

Post by PTRACER »

Jesper Hvid wrote: 2 years ago It is way too bloody old to be a portrait of the seller's mother's uncle. It very probably belongs to the 1910s, as you youself pointed out.

It is the picture of the man who crashed the car in the other pic. He who as legend has it, survived, but died. The steering wheel belongs to the car in that wreck pic.

The man in the pic is not cleft-chinned Eddie Waterman. I'd say it is a young brown-eyed latin or mixed-ethnic man in his twenties. That does not exclude mr. Waterman from being the driver of the car, the wreck of which, as Ferner rightly pointed out, is the real question of this topic.
Yeah, I did notice Eddie Waterman has a bum-chin but the guy in the steering wheel photo does not. It is obvious that the driver is fairly young though and Eddie was in his early 20s.

Personally, I don't think they look alike at all.
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