Researching any info re: Paul Cunningham, Competition Cobra privateer

[CompClassics]

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[CompClassics]

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[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by CompClassics

It was brought up in a previous post and I will post this again as a direct comparison purposes, this is the first registration card with Hasselrig’s name on it that has anything to do with 2049. This is a blown up view of the one Ned provided in an earlier post…..the Barris registration is one that I pulled from the internet, there is roughly 2 months difference for the date of issuance between each……are there any discrepancies? I will add that the Hasselrig document was used as evidence in the court case regarding the title.

The Barris one off the internet looks like it was printed by a computer with a plain "font". The Hasslrig one looks like it was done with a typewriter with a fancier "font", like the double vertical lines through the dollar sign, curved downward line on the 7, small down line on the left top of the 7, small up line on the top right of the 5, etc. The Barris one has a space between characters on the license plate number, but the Hasselrig does not.

Could there be an explanation for the difference in these styles? Perhaps the Barris one was printed by computer for a mass mailing from the DMV while the Hasselrig one was a one off generated at a DMV office? Or does this fit into Michael's forgery idea?

[CompClassics]

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[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by CompClassics

Keep looking, your almost there, understand that the basic card without info would be the same either way. Then there is other discrepancies too.

On the Hasselrig version:

The state of California seal is almost entirely faded away and more to the right.

What's up with the black line through the word CALIFORNIA on the registered owner address? Looks sort of like the crease line on the Barris registration.

Is the red printing missing or it just cropped out?

[CompClassics]

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[peterpjb]

and the court didn’t care that the watermark was missing?

[1985 CCX]

Courts and lawyers in the these cases like to perpetuate the argument as it means more $$ for them. There is no reason for debating legal counsels to back down as then the party is over and the $$ stops flowing towards them.....

You get this point if you ever had taken part in a divorce...

Yup, legal matters bring me to question reality....

[CompClassics]

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[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

The Barris one off the internet looks like it was printed by a computer with a plain "font". The Hasslrig one looks like it was done with a typewriter with a fancier "font", like the double vertical lines through the dollar sign, curved downward line on the 7, small down line on the left top of the 7, small up line on the top right of the 5, etc. The Barris one has a space between characters on the license plate number, but the Hasselrig does not.

Could there be an explanation for the difference in these styles? Perhaps the Barris one was printed by computer for a mass mailing from the DMV while the Hasselrig one was a one off generated at a DMV office? Or does this fit into Michael's forgery idea?

The Barris one was printed on a line printer. The wavy lines and sometimes irregular character spacing point to a "chain" printer, like a IBM 1403 that needed some PM.

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by peterpjb

if you compare the CompClassics pictures of the chassis in #5 and Nedsels pictures of the wrecked car in #38, there is no doubt that the chassis is from 2049, the rocker panel cover of the drivers side has exactly the marks of the accident, Connie Moore found that chassis in a Long Beach wrecking yard around 1970, these chassis remains are consistently trackable to David Harts car. I just read the whole story in the new book from Robert D. Walker which dedicates 2049 an eleven pages story.

I was wondering how you got the book, since Amazon says it will be available in January.

Then I googled a bit more and found this statement: Availability: Available now for Continental Europe and will be available in the UK December 1 and USA in January

[peterpjb]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

I was wondering how you got the book, since Amazon says it will be available in January.

Then I googled a bit more and found this statement: Availability: Available now for Continental Europe and will be available in the UK December 1 and USA in January

yes, amazing that it is available in Germany before UK and US.
I was on an interest list and got a mail from Dalton Watson that the books are available, I ordered them and received them within three days (!). No custom fees were to pay, sometimes there is some luck…

[ALF]

What did they use in 63 at the DMV typewriter, computer printer or both?

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by ALF

What did they use in 63 at the DMV typewriter, computer printer or both?

Looks like a typewriter to me

[ALF]

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Looks like a typewriter to me

= typewriter was used mostly AND the watermark was readable..

Sorry for my stupid question (as I see it from the non US/CA citizen view):
But does DMV California not have any history information available?
- VIN CSX2049
or
- License Number JJB499

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by ALF

But does DMV California not have any history information available?
- VIN CSX2049
or
- License Number JJB499

Sure, if you want to hand sort by date with over 1,000,000,000 records in their archives in some dusty, dark warehouse.

Those same records may have been purged over the years, as most states do after 15-20 years.


Bill S.

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Looks like a typewriter to me

Sorry Bill, but I agree with Tony that the non-Hasselrig registrations look like they were printed from a mainframe computer printer that needs maintenance.

Back in the 1980s, I did some mainframe programming and printed on pre-printed forms. The mainframe printer technology of the 1980s (which predated laser printers with all kinds of fonts) was most likely the same as the 1960s. One of the places I worked at had some nice old ladies working with punched cards. So we had some old technology at the time for the 1980s.

I kept an antique tool of the trade, a forms ruler:





We would use a forms ruler to figure out character positioning on pre-printed forms.

In your Jim Morrison registration, those zeros and ones consistently dropping below the other characters looks like an out of adjustment mainframe printer. A typewriter would not misalign characters veritcally like that.

Mainframe printers did not have "serifs". If you look at the Hasselrig registration, it has "serifs" and ones & zeroes are lining up vertically, like you would expect a typewriter to do.

I say:
- Hasselrig registration is typewriter
- other registrations are mainframe computer printer

[1ntCobra]

Also, if you look at Hasselrig registration and think that looks like there is some vertical misalignment on characters there, that is not really misalignment. That is just the way the "serifs" are on the characters. For example, the 4's in "4640" and "2049" and "8041", the typewriter "font" puts the horizontal line in the 4 even with the bottom of the other numbers, but has a "serif" dropping below that.

[twobjshelbys]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

Sorry Bill, but I agree with Tony that the non-Hasselrig registrations look like they were printed from a mainframe computer printer that needs maintenance.

Back in the 1980s, I did some mainframe programming and printed on pre-printed forms. The mainframe printer technology of the 1980s (which predated laser printers with all kinds of fonts) was most likely the same as the 1960s. One of the places I worked at had some nice old ladies working with punched cards. So we had some old technology at the time for the 1980s.

I kept an antique tool of the trade, a forms ruler:





We would use a forms ruler to figure out character positioning on pre-printed forms.

In your Jim Morrison registration, those zeros and ones consistently dropping below the other characters looks like an out of adjustment mainframe printer. A typewriter would not misalign characters veritcally like that.

Mainframe printers did not have "serifs". If you look at the Hasselrig registration, it has "serifs" and ones & zeroes are lining up vertically, like you would expect a typewriter to do.

I say:
- Hasselrig registration is typewriter
- other registrations are mainframe computer printer

The Morris card is obviously line printer stock. As is the other. That kind of card stock would be pre-printed forms. Typed forms would have been soft stock with multiple copies (either real carbon paper or later the self-duplicating).

Ha! I have two old forms rulers. One is plastic and the other metal.

The college I worked at upgraded the printer on our IBM 1130 from the 1132 which was a dog to a 1403 with our federal grant. The IBM channel adapter which also gave us high perofrmance disc drives, cost as much as the 1130 CPU box.

One student found a way to spew paper from the printer in the first few days we had it. In FORTRAN the WRITE (PRINT) statement always reserved the first character as a line control. "1" was "top of form", " " (space) was single line, I think "0" was double space, etc. Well, he left off the leading character and when he printed a big number (using "I4" as an integer format control - Integer, 4 characters) the numbers below 1000 caused it to see a space and single spaced. When he hit "1" it jumped to the top of the page. When he hit "2" the printer looked for a punch in the "2" channel on the page tape and just kept slewing paper until it ran out. There was paper flying 4 or 5 feet out the back of the printer across the room. Fortunately it wasn't that much paper in the box . After that used a format tape that had a punch in each channel...

In FORTRAN the "+" carriage control was "no space", ie, overprint on the same line. Some people figured out that you could get gray scale by overprinting certain combinations. We had a card deck that would print a pretty decent rendition of the Mona Lisa on the 1403 (but with a new ribbon).

Printers of the day had 120 or 132 print positions and used fan-fold 11" paper with 66 lines (typically the format tape was set to use only 60 with channel 1 being the top of the page and another (12?) being the marker for page end of page with 60 lines used. The printer driver would send end-of-page and automatically skip to top. Some programming languages (like RPG and COBOL) had the ability to detect the end-of-page channel and would automatically skip to the top and print the "header lines".

Another fun fact of the 1403 was that the carriage was hydraulically driven. So once a year or so our IBM service rep would show up and don his his coveralls (normally he wore a gray suit with pencil thin tie, they all did) and literally change the oil on the printer.

You know that during the Pandemic COBOL programmers were highly sought after. Many east-coast states unemployment systems were mainframe COBOL and were basically running in "benign neglect" mode. Old-time COBOL programmers were solicited from retirement to update them.

[ALF]

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Sure, if you want to hand sort by date with over 1,000,000,000 records in their archives in some dusty, dark warehouse.

Those same records may have been purged over the years, as most states do after 15-20 years.

Bill S.

Did you ever try it?
I assume NO.

I did it: