Hi,
I acquired a key holder / key fob that looks pretty old, featuring a Cadillac / Oldsmobile / Buick dealership address in Hackettstown, New Jersey (see picture).
According to the Oldsmobile logo (no more earth globe or rocket engine), I would date this item to the mid 60s to late 70s.
I just wonder whether there exists somewhere a list of Cadillac dealerships and their period of activity ? From the Internet, the address mentioned is currently an auto body repair shop, when did this "Vey & Sons" GM dealer disappear ?
The middle logo is Pontiac.
There is a guy on E-Bay that reproduces key fobs with original dealer
names, etc. This looks very much to me like one of his creations.
I've bought a few myself.
Mike
@Don : I must have had my head upside down that day I posted :o. When did Pontiac drop their Indian Chief head logo for the "arrow" (?) sign ? early 60s ?
@Mike : You may well be right, which would be somehow disappointing. But the question remains, what about this mystery GM dealer ? :)
IIRC, it was kind of a range of time. It started in the late 60's. My 70 Bonneville, for instance, had the arrowhead symbol on several things, but the high-beam indicator on the dash was in the shape of an Indian head. That probably went away with the re-design of the B-body in 1971, but I'm not certain on that.
Hello,
My 65 and 69 GTO convertibles (long gone now) used the newer image, NOT the indian head. I believe it was used up until the late 50s.
Richard
My dad was a Pontiac dealer and I was a salesman when the GM of Pontiac decided that with the '57 models the silver streaks had to go and the Indian followed soon after. I believe the new logo was adopted in the early 60s, but by then we had sold the dealership and escaped to Florida.
My 56 Cadillac Limousine came from Center City Cadillac in Philadelphia, now gone since about the late 1980s or early 90s. My father ran his own dealership out of several garages around Manyunk-Roxborough (Philadelphia) from 1965-1990 or so. He was a dealer for:
-Hess & Eisenhardt, Cincinnatti, OH
-Modular (Box) Ambulances
-Superior Hearses & Ambulances
-Lincoln Custom Limousines
Philippe, there are three lists but none is available to the collector in its entirety. I am making one of them. Thank you for this name and address. I didn't have it until your posting.
There was a dealer in Hackettstown in 1957 or earlier, per an owner's manual via Steve Karr. Whether Vey was there by that time I do not know, and I cannot say when Vey ceased operations. They were not a very big Cadillac dealer. Before October 1965, they probably could not order new Cadillacs directly from the factory.
A second list of sorts is owned by GM Heritage Center but it does not provide a chronological sequence of dealers by location. It seems that Cadillac Division has never had any such chronology, which led me to start one about six years ago.
A third list is owned by the CLC Museum and Research Center for this period but it is far from complete and is added to by enthusiasts such as you and me. It is not arranged by dealer name.
I'd agree that the fob is late 1960s-early 1970s. You could try local newspapers for the period to find Vey ads, if any.
59 was the first year for new logo. Here is the rest of the story..........ha
Roy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac
In 1969 - 1971 There was the Vey Cadillac agency in Rockaway NJ. It doesn't exist now.
Terry Wenger
Here is a new find : a NOS-looking keyfob/keyholder from Tinney Cadillac in Buffalo, NY :) .
Their dealership building still exists : it was at first a Pierce-Arrow showroom in the 1930s then hosted several consecutive Cadillac dealerships :
Subsequent owners:
1936-1957 Maxson Cadillac dealership
1957-1981 Tinney Cadillac dealership
1981-1998 Braun Cadillac-Buick dealership
[From this website about Buffalo architecture and history : http://buffaloah.com/a/main/2421/hist/index.html (http://buffaloah.com/a/main/2421/hist/index.html)]
The keyfob itself was made by "California Saddle Leather", a trademark of the former A.K. Saltz tannery in Santa Cruz, CA [see Santa Cruz County website : http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/articles/83/ (http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/articles/83/) and Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History website : http://www.santacruzmah.org/2011/a-k-salz-tannery-collection/ (http://www.santacruzmah.org/2011/a-k-salz-tannery-collection/) ]
Tom-
I sent you an email with a dealer code question. Might go into your Spam folder. I would appreciate your looking at it when you have a moment.
Thanks in advance.