I used to work for the state of Texas and covered 87 different counties in my job back then. Tons of small towns along my route of travel. I ended up making a hobby of driving off to the small towns along the way and driving up and down all the back streets and alleys of each. You would not believe what one can find by doing that, especially in depressed neighborhoods. Talking with just the local guys in a hardware store has been a real lead to a lot of things in the past when I was more into finding old cars and such. I have many fond memories of finding stuff by sheer accident n simply going through all of those old neighborhoods or looking closely at the farm fields about such small rural towns. Finding the right owners was probably the most difficult thing I came across, but you would not believe what you can come across if you keep your eyes open.
Unfortunately, even old shops used to frequently toss away a lot of stuff someone these days would call a treasure. My Dad and my two uncles ran a garage for years when I was a kid and I still recall a lot of things they tossed out back in the alley which sure would be nice to come across today. The cars weren't so much vintage back then as they are now. Heck, I can still recall going to the jalopy races at the circle tracks and seeing a ton of Model A and coupe stuff being tossed as the cars were stipped to the bone for racing on the circle tracks. No one gave a thought as to them having value back then or the idea that you should store them as opposed to tossing them. I bet small fortunes were lost as these pieces were junked or tossed.
I saw a '36 Auburn at a car show a couple of weekends back. The owner had tossed away a lot of the stock parts so that he could convert the thing to a street rod. It was a really sad site to see if your not into the hot rod mode so much as you are in keeping one stock. He did a real butcher job on the bumpers and interior of that car, too. One can only imagine the worth of all the parts he tossed from that car, from the engine, ******, seats and such. He told me he didn't have any space to keep the items and that he was 16 when he got the car so keeping them or even salvaging them meant absolutely nothing to him at the time. He had ripped out the glass divider between the front seat and the passenger cabin. Even as a street rod, it was poorly done with all that was flubbed up on it.
Me, I have been out of the hobby for quite a while, so I am just now keeping my eyes open for those jewels in the weeds and back yards of others. This is how I came across my first '36 Ford Coupe, my '42 Chevy Business Coupe and others in my past. When I worked for UPS, I found a complete flathead engine down in the open field out back of their hub. Unfortunately, the whole area was graded in over the years and all was lost there.
