The registries have also been very useful recently in the shutting down of
several frauds.
There was a "100S" on e-bay that had apparently been cobbled together from a
standard 100 and a lot of reproduction and spare parts...
And there were two occasions where e-bay Healeys were shown to have been
supposedly offered for sale from 2 or 3 diverse locations nearly
simultaneously, and were identified as scams utilizing "borrowed" car pictures
and ID data. These were rapidly removed from e-bay.
It was those instances that have impressed me the most.
David W. Jones
'62 Mk II BT7 tricarb
Cumberland, RI USA
----- Original Message -----
From: Awgertoo@aol.com
To: mother-ship@earthlink.net ; Healeys@autox.team.net
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: Ebay BJ8
In a message dated 3/9/2005 12:11:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mother-ship@earthlink.net writes:
What is the practical purpose of a registry?
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In my view, numerous and different depending upon the registry.
For those into restoring their cars to original condition the Concours
Registry serves to establish--and administer through judging--the standards
for the
various models. These standards are determined on the basis of actual
observation of change-points, known variations, and a lot of anecdotal
reports of
owners, etc. And beyond originality it is also a repository of a lot of
"correct" information, as for example a recent string about the order of
assembly of
intake manifold spacers or the like. Or how about Rich Chrysler's comments
of
just today concerning the non-original early armrest on the nice late BJ8 on
Ebay?
For those into finding out about the history of their cars, some registrars
(Steve Byers for the BJ8 being the most outstanding example) keep extensive
databases by car numbers and can, if not under any privacy constraints,
share
information with present owners about who owned the car earlier, etc. etc.
Steve
has also documented cars that have been "chopped" and resassembled with
incorrect numbers, found stolen cars and notified duped buyers and reunited
parts
on ebay with the present owners of the car to which they originally
belonged.
I also think that there is a large crossover between the "Concours" purpose
and the "History" purpose: Our cars were apparently manufactured in an
ideosynchratic manner, especially the four-cylinder and earliest
six-cylinder cars,
and by gathering enough information on notable change-points the
data-gatherers
help those looking to document the Originality Standards in pinning down
"what was" as opposed to "how it should have been".
I'm sure that other listers will have their own contributions on the
topic--I
think that the Registries in all of their incarnations are valuable
resources
to us. Those who toil in this field do so as a labor of love.
Best--Michael Oritt, 100 Le Mans (NOT one of the 5000 M's remaining of the
original 640)
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