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Packard Newbie wrote:
Some valid and relevant points made on both side of this conversation. Leeedy, I sure identify with your 'tire story'! It seems like a lot of store clerks and counter folks are so computer-dependent these days, that if it isn't easily findable of their work screen, their 'job is done'. Maybe it's just me, but it usually seems like it's the older guys who 'cut in' here and go do some physical checking, and think outside the box a bit. I know there are some cracker-jack youngsters out there too, but digitization, for all it's advantages and time savings, has also become a dependency issue that, if used for the sole source of info, can end up falling short of telling 'the whole story'. Chris.
Exactly Chris... this is also why we have so many absurd stories on the internet about Packard bicycles.
Or about Packard Panthers– wild stuff. This is why somebody would spend over $700,000 for a Panther that was done completely wrong, with bogus information and claimed to be a later car that it never was.
Yet ignored the fact that it IS the first one made. Why? Because the internet and auction companies said so! Who ya gonna believe? Some old dude and a Packard Club article on old-fashioned paper in a magazine for members? OR car hawkers/flippers, auction companies and fancy whizz-bang web sites? (and this car is allllllll over the internet!!!). Forget the facts. Heaven forbid that we might actually have to go physically look in an old magazine or ask the club and people in it that have the facts. Let's go for the instant internet stuff that is just a marvelous click away! AND you can even get it on your phone!
And just recently a big company with a fancy web site is circulating a story that claims Packard Predictor was delivered from Italy without the interior installed. Wow. This despite the fact that in the video I saved of Predictor
being uncrated, styling chief Bill Schmidt is sitting in the driver's seat, swiveling it (kinda hard to do if there was no interior). But the company has a web presence, swoopy web site and a huge audience. Let's ignore the Packard Club (which has provided lots of facts, including unknown inside information several times) and let's go for the internet stuff!
Or how about the 10-20 different versions of Earle C. Anthony's Packard neon story on the internet? All from "respected and knowledgeable sources" with whizz-bang web sites with "security" ratings, etc. These sources will tell you Mr. Anthony bought TWO signs (don't take my word for it... take a look and see). By the way, not true–no matter how many web sites, museums and neon "experts" say so.
These web sites will even quote prices Mr. Anthony supposedly paid. Not.
They'll tell you the first sign was mounted on top of Mr. Anthony's Packard dealership (not even close to being true).
And these sources will show you pictures claiming to be from 1923 of a Packard neon ... mounted on a building that did not exist until 1929–and the photo obviously (to someone who really knows) taken even after that!
The Packard Club revealed the exact, accurate story with photographs of Earle C. Anthony's neon Packard signs– years ago. But do we wanna recognize this accurate history? Or ignore it and go for the click-bait internet oleo? You know what has happened.
Mr. Anthony's papers DO exist and that is not at all what they say. Not at all. I got these papers fifty years ago directly from the company's assets and people who worked for Earle C. Anthony, Inc. No. These papers are not online. And the neon sign story (the accurate one) is not online either. But it exists.
So who're you gonna believe? A fancy-dancy web site that follows the popular myths every neon person swears by (courtesy of the internet)? Or somebody who knows? Nahh... let's go for door #1. It's quick and easy and we can click our computer mouse... and use links... or even do it on our phones. And we've got the almighty "wiki" (what a prize "source" this one is). No need to rely on things printed on paper–like in stuffy old libraries, museums or collections.
These are just a few examples of many that illustrate internet reality is not always
reality reality.
Thank heaven for the internet and people who have done wondrous things with it. We owe them a lot. But not blind allegiance or singular dedication and the sole route to knowledge. Hopefully we have not yet become lemmings. Even the stuff that is on the internet has usually come from somebody's hard work in the past (the thing that some folks today want to pretend never existed–even while they discuss old cars). It is easy for someone to come along years later and post some thing on the internet and be praised and get credit for what appears in today's world to be a fact or new discovery. One can always stand tall doing so by standing on someone else's shoulders. Recognizing original sources is not a terrible thing. Ignoring them is.
There are plenty of very knowledgeable sources (real people) in the Packard Club. Some of them are the very reasons why this history has been kept alive since the 1950s. This stuff hasn't just fallen out of the sky. People physically saved it and promoted it. A lot of these people are already gone. Others are old guys who don't even use computers. But one can still ask them questions–even if it can't be done via DIY or point-and-click method or smart phones. Their names and even addresses are listed in every directory and every magazine... regardless of how cutting-edge whizz-bang the web site is or isn't. It is important to remember that the whole world is not digitized and online. And... there was also a reason why "snopes" was invented.
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