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The latest Florida Region newsletter includes a period photograph of a Dual Valve Six, blown-up across the front and back covers. The photo was presented as a mystery, asking who is riding in the rear of the Pierce-Arrow. No one has yet correctly identified the rear seat passenger(s); so we thought non-Region members might like to see the photo, too, and try to identify who is riding back there.
We originally offered a prize for the correct answer – picking up the lunch tab at the Region’s next Spring Meet luncheon to the first person who correctly identifies the passenger(s). That part of the mystery is included, too.
In response to the Mystery Photograph, I am going to present my educated guess into who is the rear seat and where the picture was taken.
I believe the car is a Presidential Pierce-Arrow carrying President Coolidge to (or from) the Sixth International Conference of American States held in Havana, Cuba – January 15-17, 1928.
The Dual Valve Six that is pictured appears to have the AAA badge commonly found in other pictures of Presidential cars between the Harding and Coolidge administrations. The license plate is decorative and hard to make out with this small picture but should be a shielded eagle with stars. The car following also places this photograph in the mid to late 1920’s. I believe the actual location of this picture would be in State-Side (Miami) as there are other pictures of Coolidge riding in a 1920’s Rolls Royce through the streets of Havana. It would be unlikely that he rode in several different makes of cars while on his only official presidential trip, lasting a total of 3 days. Lastly, since the Mystery Photograph is presented by the Florida Region, it would not be surprised that this picture was taken by someone in that region of the country.
Again, this is only a guess…
Wowie-Zowie Ben!
The full size pic on the Florid Region Newsletter has quite a lot of “grain” (for those of us who were brought up before the “pixel” age) so it is difficult to discern the small letters on the top of the License Plate.
The License Plate number is “102” and my brain wants to say that the top of the license plate reads; “Dist. Col. 1924.” I only wish that I could get a good image of the P-A’s radiator mascot, but it blurs against the grey suit of the man directly in line with it. I want to say that it is an eagle of some sort.
The second car in line seems to be a Lincoln, although it is not running a “Weed” style bumper. The headlight surrounds are black, Cadillac? Its License Plate number is 1-148 with the same abbreviations on the top of the plate.
Is this helpful information?
I just went to the website: http://www.worldlicenseplates.com and looked up the Dist. Col. plates for the 1920s & 1930s. Some of the images shown (1924 through 1927) match the plate in the pic.
The 1924 plate was yellow on black. The 1925 plate was white on dark blue. The 1926 plate was black on orange and the 1927 plate was yellow on black. The 1928 plate was black on yellow but had a different letter / number arrangement.
Ergo, the plate shown in the picture was either 1924, 1925 or 1927, so I believe that my brain was correct in thinking the last digit on the plate across the top is 1924.
The plot thickens!
It is great to see the initial comments about the Dual-Valve Six photo.
No one has yet identified who is riding in the back of the Dual-Valve Six. When looking at the photo, please do not forget you have a built-in magnifying icon/prompt at the bottom right corner of the computer screen that allows enlarging up to 400%. That allows examining all the great visual clues.
Good Luck!
The car appears to be a four wheel brake Series 33, so 1924 is possible. The front wheel brakes were first advertised in February 1924. A Presidential seal is placed on the rear door, and whoever you see riding is on the left jump seat. Are those bands you can see on his sleeve? I would argue that the second car is a Lafayette instead of a Lincoln.
Just in case you have not looked at the Second Florida Region Mystery Photo message recently, I’ve found additional information on this photo and placed it there, which also shows two different photos of the car, so you can see both with the additional information. Here’s hoping that will also help identify the other passenger wearing a hat.