Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

I would like to share a picture of an item that I found several years ago in a 1937 Business Coupe body I bought in North Carolina. It was installed on the drivers side kick panel. It shows this car was sold in Los Angeles At Earl C. Anthony.

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  Earl A.jpg (137.73 KB)

Yea lots of us have that tag. Do you also have the firewall builders plate ? That is the one you want on your car.

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  IMG_20170905_155718.jpg (344.12 KB)


  EAPlaque.jpg (40.64 KB)

Just a note -- there is an "e" at the end of the first name. Just saying...

Thanks about the "e" on the end of Earle I missed that. On the ID Plate it was missing on the frame and body when I got it. I had the parts to make it a whole car and it's running around Tuscaloosa Alabama. If it had the ID tag I might have kept the car. Although I have enough Packard's at my Shop. 4 37's and 1 36. And this was 5 years ago when I put it together. Don

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Actually the tag shown here does not indicate that the car was sold in Los Angeles. It very well could have been sold out of Earle C. Anthony, Inc. dealership in either Los Angeles, San Francisco or Oakland.

KFI (unlike today) was classified as a "clear channel" back in those days and not limited to Los Angeles. Also unlike today "clear channel" was not a brand name or a company name. Rather, "clear channel" was a federal broadcast privilege that entitled the holder to basically own broadcast rights to a particular channel nationwide. So if you were broadcasting on 640 AM, that channel was reserved only for you. No other radio station could broadcast on that frequency. Also, KFI used the term, "Super Station" many decades prior to others using such terms.

Unlike FM, AM radio waves can broadcast a long, long way in the right atmospheric conditions. ECA, Inc. would issue special broadcast receipt stamps/certificates to listeners who wrote in from remote locations. I have one.

I'm attaching a and ECA KFI Verification Stamp sent to a KFI listener in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Anthony and his lawyer would sometimes sail E.C.'s yacht to places like Hawaii or Tahiti and pick up KFI.

In addition to being California Distributor for Packard Motor Car Company, Mr. Anthony also had his own official dealerships. These dealerships varied and came and went over the years. One was even in Beverly Hills for a time. But the two mainstays were Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both were in very beautiful buildings. I was lucky enough to work in one of them when I was in college at UCLA.

Mr. Anthony preferred to be called "E.C." by his closest associates. I personally knew and interviewed two of his top executives and his lawyers in the 1970s. I have collected and saved E.C.A. history and items all of my life. He was a great pioneer and innovator in all things automotive, in radio, in television, in marketing, and in neon signs just to name a few.

E.C. certainly deserves far more recognition than he has received in Packard history and in California in general.

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  ECAKIFsignalReptStampWM.jpeg (149.39 KB)


  ECAKFIsignalRecptCVR2WM.jpeg (161.76 KB)