An initial information gathering phase revealed a general lack of knowledge about what marker styles existed or were used on any particular model. A search of the 10-CD set of pre-war drawings available from the RROC club store didn't immediately help since the drawings on these CDs are not a user friendly resource. But once one learns what it is they are reading, those CD's provide a wealth of information. The CD's contain GA and LOP drawings. An LOP is a tabular 'List of Parts' for a particular model of car or cars indicating the parts, part numbers and materials required for manufacture. A GA is a 'General Arrangement' drawing which indicates how parts are arranged into various assemblies. A GA does not have photographs, but is an engineering drawing of an assembly from various orthogonal directions. The GA's were drafted long ago, before the advent of modern drafting software, and various human drafting errors or omissions are fairly common making the task even more challenging.

All the while we were making contact with various RROC and RREC members in person, by phone, e-mail and by attending national meets. The questions asked were about markers or printed materials they might have or know about which would be pertinent to the subject. We collected photos and first hand views of as many cars as possible to try and make sense out of the information from the GA's, LOP's and elsewhere. Our goal started as one of identification, but eventually came to include reproduction as well.

In talking with Will Fienenes of Fiennes Restoration another type of drawing came to light. The RREC Hunt House in Paulerspury, UK, has a large collection of manufacturing drawings which, to our knowledge, are not available anywhere else. These are engineering drawings of individual parts that were used for actual manufacture. Whereas a GA may indicate 100 parts and how they fit together, only these manufacturing drawings give the details of each individual part. With Will's help, and also with a visit to the Hunt House, we were able to collect a large amount of additional information to further untangle the mystery. Even though the Hunt House may have the largest drawing collection anywhere, there are still many drawings which apparently no longer exist leaving many questions unanswered. Once the trip was completed it also became apparent that the notes we took were not nearly as complete as we thought they were at the time; additional visits would be helpful.

If you have any additional information on markers, please think about providing it to us so that we may better understand the subject. We are deeply involved in an effort to make ALL of the various styles of wire markers available to car owners. Not just any markers, but the proper styles of marker for each car. Unless we have the needed information, and samples, of a particular style we can't reproduce them for the cars which now lack them. Many of the earlier styles are still undefined; we may have a part number but have no idea what its details may have been. We especially need photos or drawings for the Ghost markers as well as information from the Ghost parts books. If you have something that could add to what you see here, please contact us.