Absolutely a panel. My guess is a sales manager or owner looking over his newest inventory. Maybe a fleet order. Of course, they could be dark blue and dark green. I don't think the difference would show on a B&W reprint. The third one in does seem to have some tonal differences. It may actually be black.

 

Yeah - Monkey vs. Toothy - Revision 2015. Thought we beat it to death a few years ago but I'm always ready for a laugh.

 

And 51's had stainless parking light doors, right? Did 52's have them or were they body color in 52?

 

Where's Julie when we need him to start an argument over this? I think '51s started out the year with stainless headlight doors and parking light surrounds. When the war took the stainless away the headlight doors became Argent and parking light surrounds became Ivory like the grilles. Stu

 

Funny you mentioned that. Saw him cruising by on the main drag of my little town a few days ago.

 

Was Bruce Jenner riding shotgun?

 

I've often wondered about that. Did they really dress like that everyday, or did they dress up for the camera? I've seen pictures of guys dressed like that in farm scenes, like loading a hay wagon. Whatever, pictures like these always fascinate me and I save every one. I'm always wistful looking at them, oh if only I had a time machine.....

 

My grandfather on my mother's side was a B&O railway station manager. He wore a suit and tie every day. Hat was also an everyday thing. Overcoat only when necessary.
My grandfather on my fathers side worked in a saw mill. Overalls everyday. Had to shower and change in the basement before my grandmother would allow him into the main part of the house. When he did, it was what we would call dress slacks and a dress, (usually white), shirt. But then, they were both born around 1880-1885.

 

I lean towards your paternal grandfather. Overalls and muck boots everyday. Vigilante pants, Tombstone shirt with a waistcoat, ascot, and a coat with tails, topped with a bowler for Sunday-go-to-meeting. Somewhat like this gent- Tombstone Shirt - White -only nowhere near as young nor as handsome!!

 

Yes, people really dressed like that.

Back in the day going shopping meant the ladies would get all prettied up. Everyone, men and women, wore hats, and gloves, seems like. Everyone in the trades had a distinctive uniform too - the mailman, the milkman, the coal man, meter reader, the ice man, the mechanic, printer etc. I'm not old enough to remember much of that, but Americans up until maybe the 1980s were pretty thrifty, credit was mostly a dirty word, and most families didn't go out to eat at a restaurant or even eat fast food very often - maybe a few times a year at most for a sit down restaurant, I remember that clearly because the excitement of going out to a restaurant was severely tempered by the necessity of (probably) taking a bath, and definitely, putting on the Sunday duds.

All of this petty ricky-ticky bourgeois sensibility had to be expunged, naturally, in order to pave the way for the near-perfect utopia we all currently enjoy today, so it was totes worth it.

 

My mother remarked the other day that when my parents moved to San Jose in '52, she was shocked to see a man at the grocers wearing shorts and sandals. That simply wasn't done back in Chicago, even on the hottest days.

 

Looks like smoke from a steam locomotive. Maybe there was a rail spur nearby. Great old picture. Thanks for posting it Scott.

 

naw thats yosemite sam having a brain meltdown cause of that rascally wabbit , that"s what that cloud of smoke is .............