[Nobbc] Fw: [NVVC] Check him Out!! [1 Attachment]
Mike Gianandrea
mvg1 at att.net
Mon Jan 31 11:49:36 MST 2011
Alrighty Now,
TALK ABOUT A BARN FIND? ENJOY
MVG
----- Original Message -----
From: alan boring
To: Michael Gianandrea ; Bob Belter ; steve boring ; steve vollmuth ;
silver45surf
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 9:45 AM
Subject: Fw: [NVVC] Check him Out!! [1 Attachment]
Never know what is hiding.
Alan
--- On Sun, 1/30/11, John Gamberg <john.gamberg at att.net> wrote:
From: John Gamberg <john.gamberg at att.net>
Subject: [NVVC] Check him Out!! [1 Attachment]
To: "North Valley Volks Club" <NVVC at yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sunday, January 30, 2011, 9:10 AM
[Attachment(s) from John Gamberg included below]
The AK Miller Auction
September 7 and 8, 1996
AK Miller's Front Yard
Consider the strange story of Alex and Imogene
Miller of East Orange , VT.
They eked out an existence on a small farm. Alex
would scrounge rusty nails from burnt buildings
to repair his roof. He drove a ratty VW Beetle,
and when it died, he found another
even more ratty, and another...the rusting
carcasses littered his yard.
Alex died in 1993, and Imogene died in 1996. The
local church took up a collection so they could
be buried in the churchyard, and the state began
the process of taking the farm for taxes.
That would have been the end of a sad story,
except.....
Forget the VW: a '28 Franklin ($4500US) and a
'23 HCS($14,500US)lurk inside
While preparing the estate for auction, the
sheriff discovered a cache of
bearer bonds taped to the back of a mirror. That
triggered a
comprehensive search of the house and
outbuildings. The estate auction
would eventually be handled by Christies, and it
would bring out collectors
from all over the world.
1913 Stutz Bearcat went for just $105,000US.
Must have been the bad tire.
It seems that Alex Miller was a Rutgers grad,
son of a wealthy financier.
He lived in Montclair , NJ , where he founded
Miller's Flying Service in
1930. He operated a gyrocopter (look it up, it's
too much of a digression)
for mail and delivery service through the 30's.
But the Millers had a
secret, and they moved from Montclair when they
needed room for it.
Step behind the wheel of a 1916 Stutz Bearcat.
($155,000 US)
Choosing to live low profile, and paranoid about
tax collectors, Miller
moved to the farm in VT, and took his
collections with him. Most of his
cash had been exchanged for gold and silver bars
and coins, which he buried
in various locations around the farm. He
carefully disassembled his
gyrocopter, and stored it in an old one-room
schoolhouse on his property.
he then built a couple of dozen sheds and barns
out of scrap lumber and
recycled nails. In the sheds he put his
collection.
Have to remember to clean that '20 Bearcat out
of the shed. ($50,000 US)
Alex Miller had an obsession with cars. Not just
any cars, but Stutz cars.
Blackhawks, Bearcats, Superbearcats, DV16's and
32's. He had been buying
them since the 1920's. When Stutz went out of
business, he bought a huge
pile of spare parts, which was also carefully
stored away in his sheds.
A Springfield Rolls Picadilly Roadster
($115,000US). Made in Illinois .
Sometimes, he would stray, and buy other
"special cars", including
Locomobiles, a Stanley, and a Springfield Rolls
Royce. He never drove them.
He'd simply move them into his storage sheds in
the middle of the night,
each car wrapped in burlap to protect it from
any prying eyes. Over the
years, the farm appeared to grow more and more
forlorn, even as the
collection was growing.
A snappy car: 1921 Stutz Bearcat. ($58,000 US)
Occasionally he would sell some parts to raise
cash. Rather than dipping
into his cache, he would labor for hours making
copies of the original
parts by hand.
Stutz factory spares. Cylinders and pistons from
a brass era Stutz in forground.
Collectors knew him as a sharp trader, who had
good
merchandise but was prone to cheating. His
neighbors had no clue at all,
they thought Alex and Imogene were paupers, and
often helped out with charity.
Wheelbarrow blocks a '28 Stutz Blackhawk
Boattail Speedster ($78,000 US)
The auction was a three day circus, billed as
the "Opening of King Stutz
Tomb". It attracted celebrity collectors, as
well as
thousands of curiosity seekers. The proceeds
were in the millions, some
items went for far more than their value in the
frenzy.
In the end, the IRS took a hefty chunk of the
cash for back taxes, which proves the old adage about the only two sure things
in life...
A vanilla '31 SV16 Stutz Sedan ($10,000)
Bargain of the show: a '29 Stutz Blackhawk
sedan for $7000 US
A beautiful Stutz DV32 Sedan ($27,500)
Anyone need a new Stutz engine? Still factory
fresh.
A'23 HCS ($12,000 US) lurks in the darkness of
the barn
A Lebaron dual-cowl Stutz from 1929 ($68,000US)
A '27 Stutz AA Sedan for $6500US
1925 Stutz Speedway Six ($9000 US)
T-Head engine in a '21 Bearcat
Build a '22 Stutz toruing car from this pile of
parts for just $10,000US
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Attachment(s) from John Gamberg
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