Found Car Club Plaque Do you no the history?

Hey Hambers on the West Coast do any of you know the history on this plaque?
My brother found this on his farm in Kansas several years back. We also found the remains of a wadded up 41 Mercury 2-door in a ravine. Nothing much left that was distinguisable.
This plauque was in the ravine as well. It is unique in that it is Cast Iron and has been chromed plated. What little paint that is left appears to be a flat army greeen on lettering only. The club name was the PRIMERS from Concord California. There is not any casting marks on the backside.
Just was courious about the history. Thanks for the help.

 

You might check with Dennis O'Brian, no help here.....but, neat plaque & cast no less.

Chris

 

hmmm....concord ca is the next town over from me, and ive never heard of this club before. you may want to get ahold of LAZYV8 on the board here. his grandfather was a member of a club in the early 50's and might have some info? thats pretty neat though, let me know if you ever wanna get rid of it

 

Go here http://www.relicsandrods.com/ That's my club web site. The web master posts on here as Bulletnose. There is a page on our site with all kinds of plaques. The webby is a real expert on them. He used to live close to Concord and he could probably help you out.

 

Thanks but Iam going to keep it for now. Just something kool to hang on the wall. I would like to know more about it for conversation info.

 

It's not one of the 15,000 I have patterns for. It looks like a Stylized Emblem or Koehler plaque to me and they were made in So Cal which is curious because Chicago Metal Craft made ~8,000 different plaques and they were right next door to Concord in Port Chicago.

I have a bunch of other "Concord" plaques, but not that one.

Happy Truckin',

Dennis O'Brien

 

I tried doing some research on this club but came up empty. A book I have called Hot Rod and Custom Car Clubs lists a bunch of clubs from the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's but there were no clubs called the Primers listed. I grew up and lived in So. Calif. (Redondo Beach) until I retired and moved to AZ so I'm not familar with the Concord area or any other parts of Northern California.

Dennis .....

Is it possible that this plaque is really cast iron? I believe some plaques were chrome plated aluminum but wonder if a pattern could be cast in iron.

 

Thanks for all the help guys. This plaque is definately cast iron it weighs 3.75# and has rust where the chrome has been knocked off. Could of been a buddy deal throuch the backdoor of come foundry in the area.
I will put it back on the wall and keep wondering. Thnaks B-Scott

 

call the concord ca. chamber of commerce they might be able to help.

 

Was there a driver in the 40, with the plaque, in the ravine????...Maybe he could tell ya!

 

Wish I could find something cool like that, anywhere! Nice find, hang on to it.

 

Never heard of them.... damn cool find!

 

Now this is an interesting mystery. And why was the car put in the ravine? Is there still someone behind the wheel?

What do you know about the car you found?

 

Nice piece of wall art. Keep it and enjoy the plaque. You can always make up a story about it.

 

This has "spooky hot rod movie" written all over it! Very cool find,and the lack of info on the club just adds to the mystery.

 

I just noticed where you are from. I have an ex-wife from there. She wasn't in that sedan was she? She would come under the heading of nothing distinguisable

 

The link that Blown Mopar listed above has it on that site as well as others from Concord Ca. ck out his link........................YG

 

Did you send that plaques pic to the link,looks like the same one ,rust stains and all,heres the linkhttp://www.relicsandrods.com/

 

If you are still looking for info on the Primers of Concord I can give you quite a bit of info on them.

 

Let's hear....

 

Fill us in on the mystery!!!

 

Ok, Voodoo,....Let's hear it,...Sounds like a cool bit of rodding history !!!!! 4T

 

I'm all ears!

 

come on Voodoo lets hear it

 

Hum, the rust patterns are identical. Wonder when the plaque on the above site was added.

 

Sure, cast iron plaques are easy to make if you have access to a cast iron foundry. You can't get as much detail, but there isn't much detail in this plaque. My guess is that the plaque was made by Koehler foundry originally and then one of the members who worked at an iron foundry (or had a friend that did) made a repop using the original as a pattern to make the sand cast mold.

For a while there was always an American Beach topper on E-bay for sale that was cast iron. I figured that someone who worked at an Iron foundry made a whole slew of them at his employer's expense and sold them off...

Dennis

 

The Primers were established in either late 52 or early 53. Three of the main guy's
were Jerry Mandel, John Early, and Jim Davis. They also spent quite a bit of time at the drag strip in Winters (which was called little Bonneville) with many of the other bay area clubs including the Swanx. I know Jerry ran a 41 Plymouth there. Their first President was Al Capri. I actually have a list of all the members, would love to see if I could find any of them. I probably have written down most of their cars also but I would have to do some backtracking to figure that out. I specialize in information about most of the bay area car clubs from the 50's so if anybody has any questions maybe I can help you out.

 

I never knew that about Chicago Metal Craft - but then again the city of Port Chicago ceased to exist in 1968 when the government bought all the land and demolished all the building to secure the Concord Naval Weapons Station.

 

From Concord, Ca to Kansas now that is a story.........

 

was their any paperwork in the car? cool find! neat story!