Milan Auction RMSothebys - 21 E-Types under the hammer ?

[rfs1957]

Yes, even the British overseas members are losing the thread.

In words of one syllable, do all E-Type engine-hyphens have to be composed by a 1 on its side, or did a real hyphen start at some point ?

There's a lot of conventional hyphens in Milan ...........

[288gto]

It's all my fault! I take full responsibility.

To clarify. Every genuine car I have seen and all books on originality that I have seen, show the "1" used on its side.

Simon ( now going into hiding)

[PeterCrespin]

I followed your line of humour, fear not!

I also concur with your stamp observations and just checked two heads in case I was mis-remembering: Jaguar sevens have a curved vertical and no serif hanging down from the left side of the horizontal, plus eights have a smaller upper circle.

I have never seen a hyphen on a head number but have seen long hyphens used on blocks (which are a larger font but still curved sans-serif sevens and unequal eights). On my 65 block the hyphen could be a one held unevenly so as not to show the serif at the top of the number but my 84 block is most definitely a hyphen where the number is stamped on the flange not the oil filter platform.

[PeterCrespin]

Original Jaguar chassis punches:

I think every number is wrong David, except the 6/9 and the 0 (although I've seen narrower zeros). The font is serifed where Jaguar's was not.

Your 1 has a serif base and short stumpy straight top serif where the real 1 has a longer curved upper serif and no base.

The 2,3,4 & 5 all seem to have serifs too and we already mentioned the 7&8.

[Heuer]

The punches have an audit trail right the way back to when they were liberated from a Jaguar storeroom in the early 1970's by David Warrow, a very good friend of Sir William. He owned and restored ENO 30 using all original Factory parts and probably knows more about the history of E-Type development than anyone still alive; he occasionally contacts me to correct anything he spots wrong in our Factory Fit thread (lately on RB310 regulators). He lost interest in Jaguar and started collecting Apollo space mission stuff which he later sold for many millions. Currently he has a large collection of old Motorcycles which he works on. Almost all his E-Type stuff has long gone although he does have a large collection of old photos's which I have promised to have a look at and scan. He was given unrestricted access to the Factory and spent many hours pulling stuff out of skips. Sir William thought he was a complete eccentric for showing such a forensic interest in the E-Type but they became firm friends. As for the punches, making them were the first job engineering apprentices were given to do. More info here: viewtopic.php?p=5099#p5099

[rfs1957]

But aren't the ones in the picture chassis punches ?

And Jaguar would have only ever had ONE set of punches to do ALL the XK engines in the E-Type ?

Find that highly unlikely, and Mr Lyons would have been the last person to know.

What happened to all the other sets the apprentices made ?

The irreplaceable unobtanium motorcycles that I get to work on were built and maintained by people who, to this day, are amazed that anyone gives a toss about such and such a detail or that anyone expects them to remember which caliper came off which bike or whether the fairing got changed before Donnington, or before Mallory Park.

And that's for one-offs ; Jaguar produced thousands of E-Types, over a 10-year period, and presumably employed the usual proportion of people who didn't give a toss about their jobs, their tools etc.

Might it be that Mr Worrow has one of the sets of punches that were used at one time ?

[Heuer]

Correct! As I said these were made by the apprentices so there were lots of sets, this lot being just one of them. Life times were short as the punches wore out quickly. There were also sets for the VIN plate, diff tags, body numbers, gearboxes, engines and for each product line. The set in the photo were found on the shelf of a wooden hut at Brown's Lane and 'liberated' as curio's - no one had any interest in them at the time.

Actually David was instrumental in saving the E-Type record books which some Muppet had consigned to waste. He handed them to Sir William and suggested they were essential for Jaguar's heritage and should be carefully conserved. Others would probably have kept them but this and other acts endeared him to Bill hence he was allowed unfettered access to the Factory stores and scrap bins.

[christopher storey]

David : I am fascinated by these "home-made" punches. Do you know how the digits were formed ?

[Heuer]

Traditionally the punch face is formed using a counter punch which was hardened and tempered. The punch itself was softened by annealing. They had a range of counter punches to create the central area around the numbers which were then formed on the outside using a file. So having an 8 with a smaller indent in the top loop would require two separate counter punches. To test the punch, the apprentice makes an imprint on a piece of paper after coating the punch with soot from an open flame. The soot left by the flame acts like ink to create an image on the paper (a smoke proof). Taught the apprentices quite a lot in how to work metal and they had something at the end of it. Every set was therefore different to a greater or lesser extent. When the punch was finished it was hardened and ready for use.

[288gto]

That's very interesting David, thanks, I always wondered how these hand made punches were created. Were the " counter punches" used more than once then, as a master set as it were from which the actual stamps were made?

Out of interest, do you have any pictures of a Jaguar chassis number or engine number stamped with the same type face "7" as your set?

Simon

[steve3.8]

David ,

I would like to suggest having looked at older examples of chassis plates these punches could have been used on earlier Jaguar cars like the XK120 and not E Types.

http://www.bobine.nl/jaguar/01-general- ... is-plates/

Unless we can view an original E Type chassis plate/frame/engine with the same font ? .

I could accept a good apprentice might be capable of making these punches but i find it hard to think Jaguar in the 1960s would rely on them to make/supply all of the punches to keep the production line going , especially when Pryory in Sheffield made them .

If we look at the youtube film of Jaguar Factory Tour 1961 it shows a crankshaft/ flywheel assembly being stamped , the punch is of a different head shape to yours , square not tapered , yours look to have been cast or case hardened with tapers at both ends .

Regards Steve

[Heuer]

I can only tell you what I have been told. If you want to argue with David Warrow please contact him to discuss. The punches came from Jaguar but may well have been used on earlier cars - never bothered to research it. As far as I am concerned they are just an interesting collectible possibly used on the XK's and the very early E-Type.

The punches were not used on "chassis plates", they were used solely on the frames. This information has been on the Forum since 2009 so if you disagree please do your own detailed research and start a new thread as you are taking this one off topic.

[politeperson]

Well, the low guides bore little relation to the sale prices.

Oldest trick in the book to get the punters revved up.

eg Ferrari 250 swb body guide 15,000 euros, sale price 146,000 euros etc.

http://www.rmsothebys.com/tv16/duemila-ruote/results/

£20,000 for a 250 gearbox, £130,000 for a 250 engine, £28,000 for a 93 XJS conv. 30,000 euros for the D type kids replica.

Strangely, many of the Jags looked ok to me, apart from the fact that the descriptions are so terse it would be pot luck buying one remotely, but certainly some of the XKs and E types looked like better value on the face of it.

Many of the early 911s looked ok too.

Maybe there is just loads of money around at the moment? 35% on the hammer price as well.

[PeterCrespin]

35-friggin'-percent? Made up of what?

[chrisfell]

35-friggin'-percent? Made up of what?

You pay 35%, or we'll have to make you an offer you can't refuse!
This is Italy.

[rfs1957]

RMSothebys aren't daft, they knew full-well that silly estimates would bring people flocking in for a bargain, and that's exactly what happened.

Some 88% of bidders were said - by RMS - to have been "new to auctions", ignoring even "the most basic working of such events".

Milan was infected with auction-fever, there were probably 1.000 + people just sitting around the dias alone, plus the crowd standing up, and it never went quiet over the 3-days I was there.

I didn't see another single person underneath a car, so with my boiler-suit, torch, screwdriver, and note-book, I sounded a rather jarring note of reality in this sea of euphoria.

People seeing cars "in an auction" seemed to assume that they must therefore be a bargain, and everyone wanted a piece of the action.

Late on Sunday, past 6.30pm on a cold, damp, dark evening, and only a couple of lots from the end, when the 1977 6-Cyl XJC (Lot 947) went for 31.360€, one of the auctioneers texted me "madness, like the whole auction".

This for a car that hadn't run for 20 years, had a sagging head-lining, and mould all over the interior and the boot.

The commission was actually 12%, plus 22% VAT on the commission, which is only 14.6% on the hammer price. There were one or two vehicles where VAT went on the whole value but they were few and far between.

Of the 21 E-Types I inspected, there was just ONE that I thought was worth having - whatever the prices on the others ; the other 20 were crocks that required big money spending on them.

The good one was a black 1966 4.2 S1 FHC with a mainly excellent rebuilt shell, new bonnet, new front frames, nice plating, traces of competent and careful handiwork everywhere, and fitted with new wires and five XVS Michelins which always says something ; but the RH door shut-lines would require panel-work, the interior was new but not right and would need redoing, the dash and instruments needed serious freshening up, and you'd still have had to beat the 151.200€ it went for. And all you got was an invoice, no log-book, no chassis plate even.

I came away reassured about how nice mine was, how I could now justify treating myself to a complete interior, and how I pitied the poor souls who bought some of these cars either without looking at them, or without knowing what they were looking at.

The 1965 4.2 S1 OTS that went for 134.400€ had a sprinkling of non-original parts all over the place, and had at some point been stripped back to bare-metal everywhere - so all the areas that hadn't been painted were rusty, and that was just what you could see. Opening the air-vents at knee-level revealed teaspoons of rust.

For the 1962 3.8 OTS that went for 156.800€ I had noted "restored, but poor, botched".

For the 1962 3.8 FHC I wrote "shut lines poor, sills f----ed, various nasty bits under the bonnet, rust everywhere", yet it fetched 147.840€.

Someone paid 140.000€ for a 1964 3.8 OTS - "scruffy, grubby, body rough".

145.600€ got you a 1963 3.8 OTS - "scruffy and botched".

The "racer" 1963 3.8 FHC in grey had all sorts of boy-racer stuff on it that wasn't quite right, according to the RMSotheby's contact, and it went for 136.640€ - tho' the body was excellent.

For the 1963 3.8 OTS I wrote "suspect make-over underneath, something not quite right about the car, many odd-looking parts" - 173.600€ to you.

The US model 1968 4.2 S1 in bronze was qualified as "poor, and f-------". 69.440€

To quote Kidstons500 opening line in their Milan résumé yesterday,

"Many came expecting a bargain ; hardly anyone left with one, and there will be a few faces reflected in the shaving mirror thinking "what have I done" ?

and, which says it all,

Many buyers could have bought a better car at a cheaper price from the many sellers at the Milano Autoclassica show held in the same halls (Ed. and on the same weekend).

[mgcjag]

Great report Rory....many thanks

[politeperson]

Yes,

Thanks Rory, very interesting.

Glad I did not attend.

Did you bother to look at any of the XK's?

[Nickleback]

Yes, great report Rory - so we didn't miss any bargains then !

[Mich7920]

That's great Rory, I read your report as a novel !
"Late on Sunday, past 6.30pm on a cold, damp, dark evening..."
I was there !!
Thanks
Mich