Car

Property of Victor Page Motors Corporation. . . Dealership and sales promotion showroom album for the Victor Page Aero-Type Four automobiles including 38 original silver gelatin photographs and typescript manuscript text detailing the business opportunities for Victor Page Motor Co. stock and development of the air-cooled Aero-Type Four for the Zollinger Motor Car Co. dealerships in Chambersburg Pennsylvania including two mounted photographs depicting future locations of the dealership near Chambersburg which also sold Buick and Dodge Bros. automobiles.

1719 · 62401 — New York NY Stamford CT & Reading & Chambersburg PA: Victor Page Motors Corporation 522 Fifth Ave. Zollinger Motor Car Co. N. Lazarnick Commercial Photographers; Leland G. Evans 24 N. Main St. Photographers 1917-1923. 4to. 67 leaves unnumbered or separately numbered in sections including 38 silver gelatin photographs a couple are reproductions of documents nearly all are linen-backed some mounted on stubs at gutter margin sized from 8 x 10 in. up to 8.5 x 11 in. 4 technical drawing blueprints for engine 2 smaller photos inserted in mylar pockets Supplementary Stock Issue announcement dittoed TLS on blue-tinted letterhead for the Beadon Service Inc. dealership indicating 5 sales assorted other ephemera including dittoed TLS announcements for Smith Motor Truck Corp. dated 1917. Flexible black calf 3-ring binder gilt lettering stamped on front cover wear rubbing front hinge split interior thumbing occasional dustsoiling still VG exemplar w/ signed introduction by Victor W. Page; together with two mounted silver gelatin photographs sized 8 x 10 on 11.5 x 13.5 in. studio mounts w/ embossed photographer’s imprint in lower right corner depicting future Zollinger Motors Co. dealership locations w/ billboards for Dodge Bros. and Buick minor edgewear some minor warping still VG bright images. An historically important survivor dealership sales brochure and album for the short-lived Victor W. Page Motors Corp. developed and built with the patented innovations of Victor W. Page 1885-1947 a pioneering automotive and aeronautical specialist and inventor. Following World War I Page left his position as the chief Aeronautical Engineering Officer in France to found the Victor W. Page Motors Corp. intended to produce over 300000 automobiles a year including the Aero-Type Four featuring his patented air-cooled motor suspension system chassis and cutaway seats. By January 1922 he was able to exhibit at the New York Auto Show with original photographs included in this dealership album of two couple sedans two convertible speedsters a display chassis and a body for the Aero-Type Four. The automobiles targeted the $ 1250- $ 1750 price range and featured steel dixc wheels contoured shell hood and fenders built with liberal amounts of aluminum.The first 15 automobiles were built in a Liberty Engine Factory including the ground-breaking 30 horsepower 4-cylinder engine featured his patented tilted steering wheel system and disc brakes. The body and chassis were built in Farmingdale MA and the engines were assembled in New York for an eventual production of just 15 cars and none survived after the liquidation auction in 1927. Page had prior experience with automobiles and had actually built 25 total cars with his earlier company the Page Motor Vehicle Co. of Providence RI which closed at the entry of the U.S. into World War I. Page in his second company as shown here intended a huge stock offering but unfortunately trusted the less than scrupulous grifter Charles Beadon to sell the stock whose salesmen ended up embezzling all dividends and profits. Some of the eary investors traveled to the Stamford CT plant to get their money back and Beadon sued him. After years of litigation the company was dissolved and all properties equipment and assets sold off. Unfortunately none of the Victor W. Page automobiles survive and this cataloguer could find no similar surviving piece of sales literature or photographs as this item. Lazarnick 1879-1955 was a pioneering automotive photographer whose images captured the development of motor vehicles form the early 1900’s to the late 1920’s and covered many of the Vanderbilt Cup Races photographed the presidential campaigns of Taft McKinley & Roosevelt as well as capturing such notables as Steinmetz Edison Oldfield and Rickenbacker. See: Frank C. Derato Victor W. Page Automotive and Aviation Pioneer 1991; John Brockmann Victor W. Page’s Early Twentieth-Century Automotive and Aviation Books: “Practical Books for Practical Men†Jounral of Business and Technical Communication Vol. 10 No. 3 July 1996 pp. 285-305; Howard Kroplick Nathan Lazarnick: The Pioneer of Automotive Photography Vanderbilt Cup Races March 9 2013. Victor Page Motors Corporation, 522 Fifth Ave., [Zollinger Motor Car Co., N. Lazarnick, Commercial Photographers; Leland G. Eva hardcover