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Saving the Heritage / Excelsior / Indian etc.

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  • Saving the Heritage / Excelsior / Indian etc.

    Bob Turek and I did a book on Excelsior. (www.American-x.org) Every time I was in Chicago I visited the Cortland street to see the Excelsior factory. Today there is a school on that location. Would it not be an idea to put some information up there to tell the story what was there before, with reference to to the AMCA? This is an idea to other locations as well. Over the world there are a lot of locations (for Tourists) which describe the history of the past. I think we have enough information to tell tell the story.
    regards Thomas

  • #2
    Hi Thomas:

    I recently came on as a volunteer to help moderate on our forum - I do the same on the AMCA Facebook page. I am looking over all the stuff in this big garage and found your comment related to heritage. One specific recommendation you had was "Would it not be an idea to put some information up there to tell the story what was there before, with reference to to the AMCA?" I guess there's any number of ways to accomplish what you are suggesting from a historical plaque to an interactive map-like smartphone app that provided an audio narrative based on GPS coordinates. I am thinking this could be a good subject for a thread where members of the AMCA forum could brain storm ideas in support of what you are saying. That thread could be like the proverbial throwing spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks.

    Before we start a specific Heritage thread maybe you can comment back to see if I m on the right track. Thanks again for your idea. I think its a good one.

    I am picturing bunches of bikers on the way to Sturgis and sight-seeing as they do, all stopping in front of this school on Cortland Street where Excelsiors were turned out in what we now wished were greater numbers. Good thing Sturgis is in August so school is not disrupted by a bunch of rumbling cycles.

    Mike Love
    AMCA #19097

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    • #3
      I know many of these historic sites of our motorcycle heritage have been documented by members. Unfortunately, the information is scattered all over this forum, and other forums. I think it would be great to find a single place to store these photographs, and descriptions because a number of these buildings are gone.

      On the CAIMAG forum, a few members are using Google street view to find current pictures of buildings, and scenes that are in the background of vintage motorcycle pictures. It's fascinating to see an old, and new picture, side by side.

      Many of our AMCA members have gone to lengths to research the locations of old factories, and dealerships. I've seen the Miami Cycle company, Emblem, Ace, and the Springfield Indian factory explored here. I agree, it would be nice to have a single place to find this information.
      Eric Smith
      AMCA #886

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      • #4
        Dear Thomas and all, great idea. This reply is to stop the topic drifting off the forum in the hope that someone takes the lead on it.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Steve Slocombe View Post
          Dear Thomas and all, great idea. This reply is to stop the topic drifting off the forum in the hope that someone takes the lead on it.
          I am going to see if we can get this subject placed on the board as a new Forum. Its certainly a complex subject that may have a number of useful threads in figuring out the logistics in getting it going. We may be able to do some interim steps to gathering materials electronically and I know the AMCA has initiated some ideas about gathering documents through digital scanning at national meets. I just don't know all the details.

          One way to start is by collecting writings and even scanned documents in Google Docs or the web site Archive.org but first lets figure out some of the how about these and other collection tools. In the mean time here is a website that presents digital collections of the State of Deleware's heritage as an example.

          http://delaware.contentdm.oclc.org

          Mike Love
          AMCA # 19097

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          • #6
            Originally posted by American X View Post
            Bob Turek and I did a book on Excelsior. (www.American-x.org) Every time I was in Chicago I visited the Cortland street to see the Excelsior factory. Today there is a school on that location. Would it not be an idea to put some information up there to tell the story what was there before, with reference to to the AMCA? This is an idea to other locations as well. Over the world there are a lot of locations (for Tourists) which describe the history of the past. I think we have enough information to tell tell the story.
            regards Thomas
            Thomas - your idea has led to the creation of a new forum to begin discussions on how we might form a grass roots effort to build your Antique Motorcycle Heritage. You can find the new forum here http://www.antiquemotorcycle.org/bbo...cycle-Heritage

            Thanks Thomas for the great idea.

            Mike Love
            AMCA# 19097

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            • #7
              Just curious, how you are going to structure this new forum category? Personally, I think it should be done by marque so contributions go into a particular brand's basket. If a member wants to search for info on a Wagner, for example; they shouldn't have to wade through other brand information. The search engine here is not very good, so categories for individual marques would simplify that chore.
              Eric Smith
              AMCA #886

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              • #8
                I should also mention that a number of AMCA members over the years have taken it upon themselves to personally visit these sites, take pictures, and in most cases; trespass for our benefit. Louie Hale, Doug Strange, and Jerry Hatfield quickly come to mind, so it isn't just Mr. Bund's antique motorcycle heritage we're talking about.
                Eric Smith
                AMCA #886

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                • #9
                  I know many of these historic sites of our motorcycle heritage have been documented by members. Unfortunately, the information is scattered all over this forum, and other forums. I think it would be great to find a single place to store these photographs, and descriptions because a number of these buildings are gone.
                  I love mega moolah free play very much

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by exeric View Post
                    Just curious, how you are going to structure this new forum category? Personally, I think it should be done by marque so contributions go into a particular brand's basket. If a member wants to search for info on a Wagner, for example; they shouldn't have to wade through other brand information. The search engine here is not very good, so categories for individual marques would simplify that chore.
                    As usual some good observations Eric. I don't know how would be best to structure the new forum and unfortunately haven't put any thought into it since putting the new forum on here. I do think that as in our latest projects we accomplish it by breaking it into manageable parts. As with anything good it takes a champion to push the boulder up the hill inch by inch. You suggested to sort under marque category which makes sense. Would you think that a morgue manufacturer's heritage under the heritage Forum makes sense? The one thing I should be doing is shuffling posts around and or copying and duplicating them for any forum where they are relevant. This in addition to weeding out what is not relevant to a particular forum. Some of that could be done by researching back within the forum. I agree with you that the search engine is limited - what does help however is for people to add "tags" at the bottom of the post. It's always available and open to add and it can start to automatically sort in the background. Tags are one of the sort categories looked at for searches.

                    More discussion and feedback is important to keep funneling down on understanding how best to document and make available the info about antique motorcycles. One thing I could also do is periodically ask for people to identify posts they may have contributed that we could then go back and move to our heritage forum and specific marque sub-forum.

                    Mike Love
                    AMCA Journal Moderator

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by exeric View Post
                      I should also mention that a number of AMCA members over the years have taken it upon themselves to personally visit these sites, take pictures, and in most cases; trespass for our benefit. Louie Hale, Doug Strange, and Jerry Hatfield quickly come to mind, so it isn't just Mr. Bund's antique motorcycle heritage we're talking about.
                      I would sure like to take one early stab at getting something going on growing info, maps, photos and quips about historic sites where motorcycles had been built, sold, serviced, etc.

                      Starting with Louie Hale, Doug Strange and Jerry Hatfield, as well as any other member of the forum can you provide just one piece of imagery or commentary that get a marque motorcycle heritage forum going? We have a general Antique Heritage Forum now as Eric Smith suggested in a comment I think we need to break this down to motorcycle makes.

                      Any contributions?

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