Oct 27, 2015

MOLINE DREADNOUGHT

The MOLINE DREADNOUGHT was a model of the MOLINE Automobile company founded in East Moline, Illinois in 1904.   They were successful  in the Chicago reliability run and their slogan was: The Car of Unfailing service.  Apart from that the car lacked any specific outstanding feature - excluding the model´s name DREADNOUGHT together with the corresponding emblem:

a five star +  emblem with incredible details ! 

Dimensions 10.3 cm x 7.1 cm
Year1912 - 1914
Estimate


The emblem resembles the side view of a (pre-) WWI battleship. The class was named "Dreadnought" after the first ship of its type, H.M.S. Dreadnought, finished in Great Britain in 1906. The ship and it´s class meant no less than a revolution in warship-building. Superior in speed, range and especially caliber of heavy guns, the introduction of the Dreadnought-class meant that whole fleets of competing sea-going nations where outdated from one day to another. A veritable arms race started around the globe to obtain ships with the Dreadnought´s capabilities. "Dreadnought" became a synonym for the most powerful nations overall. That is the most likely explanation why a car building factory adopted the term and symbol to promote one of its cars.
Judging from the silhouette  - three funnels, rear and front cone towers - the ship displayed seems to be one of the South Carolina class put to service from 1910 onward.

This emblem is one of the most wanted radiator emblems of all American Prewar cars.

No wonder it was - as many others - reproduced in the 1960s by Harry Pulfer ( see chapter on Harry Pulfer). The technique he used did not allow to display the ship in relief such as the original. The reproduction is flat-surfaced and misses more details as the bow and stern wave. Nevertheless more than $ 600 have been paid for the reproduction, maybe the buyer mistakenly took it for an original.

repro made in the nineteensixties by Harry Pulfer


MOLINE emblem with contemporary advertisement

In 1914 the new model the MOLINE KNIGHT was offered showing another extraordinary radiator emblem.


For more beautiful radiator emblems see top right  ( list of car makers ).

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