Interesting item on Ebay

Interesting perhaps, but _very_ ugly !

Those slopey fins ! It looks like an old hot water bottle.

-- Smert' spamionam

- and he wants a thousand quid for it! Poor, hopeful soul.

Like the E-bay man with the Vincent Marine Engine (lifeboat, not Amanda) that wanted to start at £7,500.

Of course we will.

Nil bid ...............

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

Perhaps it was the forerunner of the Hardly Dangerous. Looks to come from the same ilk.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Just to prove that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I find it very attractive - not to the tune of £1000 though!

ebay usually has a selection of horizontal Maytag engines available in the USA, but the earlier verticals crop up far less often and to see one in the UK is very unusual.

As it happens there is one for sale in USA at the moment:-

I'm with you on this Nick, I think it's a nice little thing which would be fun to play with.

Obviously some of us appreciate sloping fins more than others!

Closed at $209 which failed to meet reserve. With a starting price of £800, the one in UK in unsurprisingly still a bid free zone.

They are not that uncommon, despite what is being said in the adverts, we saw a couple at Portland, the best one is at:

Think that was $350 or thereabouts IIRC. There is also a flat twin on the floor below just in the RH corner of the picture, twins were about $250+ for unrestored engines.

Still wish I had bought the John Deere V4.....

Kind regards,

Peter

Peter Forbes Prepair Ltd Luton, UK email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk home: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

I am embarrassed to admit that this is the first time I have had a proper look at your Portland visit report - WOW, what an event. As if the fabulous display of engines on show (approx how many?) wasn't enough, the sale area looks like it presented temptations at every turn.

My wife has relatives in Aurora Indiana, trouble is they are on the wrong side of a family feud - looks like it might be time to start building bridges!

John Deer V4 starter engine doesn't do a lot for me, but I have always fancied one of the air cooled V4's (Wisconsin?) which appeared on the cover of SEM a few years ago.

We've said before we have similar tastes Nick, I thought the vee four Wisconsin looked good, too. Without balance shafts, they must have a dreadful rocking couple.

I bet you got all excited over the WW1 airship generator, too!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

Was that the little Bosch 'benzin dynamo' which looked for all the world like a Douglas?

It's well worth the expense to go, we were seriously impressed by the scale and variety of stuff there, and there is only tractors and engines, no steam, no bikes, no cars, no plastic toy vendors.

The JD V4 was attractive because it was so small, you can gauge the size by the bits in the background, and although it was small it was a complete running unit, add a tank and a pulley and off you go..

The air-cooled V4 Wisconsins are pretty plentiful over there, and not that uncommon over here, Dan Howden and his father had one, he may still have it.

Kind regards,

Peter

Peter Forbes Prepair Ltd Luton, UK email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk home: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

"Nick Highfield" wrote

Yes, that's the one ..............

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

"J K Siddorn" wrote:-

Thought so. I have a WWI vintage Douglas (sadly without dynamo). If I were ever lucky enough to aquire the German version I suppose they would have to be kept at opposite ends of the garden separated by a couple of lines of trenches and barbed wire!

That's right - we had a load of Wisconsins at one point. The V4 was a lovely engine, sounds lovely at full throttle, trouble was being 20bhp and petrol it was a bit thirsty. Sadly it had to go as part of my collection dispersal, I know where there's an AC4 in-line 4 cylinder Wisconsin (ex-myself) which is for sale if anyone's interested.

Regards

Dan

I have too an AC4 which is occupying space I need :-) regards Roland

'Buy it now' price has been dropped from £1000 to £800. Anybody tempted yet? - Thought not!

dan, the mention of the AC4 wisconsin brought back memories of mine back in the fifties... it was off a hay baler which had burned in a barn. as most youngsters go, i had big plans for it but they never materialised. sam mayberry