Paul, et Listers,
I seems like the more I beat the bushes on this topic, the more surprises
jump out. Maybe if we keep this up we'll finally get the whole story some
day. (I'm sure there must still be more.) Anyway, thanks again for this
even more illuminating post. A lot more to think about here. Like your
being the ONLY one who can speak for TAC, and there being two classes of
inspectors. I guess if I was trying to get a conversion authenticated, I'd
better ask for three of the 2nd-class inspectors; my chances would appear
to be at least 10% better.
It's nice to see that you at least consider the possibility that people
other than the currently active TAC people (1st & 2nd class) are "experts".
This is a very important point with respect to how situations like the
perpetration of frauds are going to be handled. Suppose they need an
"expert" witness for a civil trial where the authenticity of a Tiger is the
issue? Who ya gonna call?? Obviously, not TAC. Would one of the inspectors,
you for instance, take off their TAC hat and appear as an independent
expert to testify? If you did that, how would it affect you future
involvement with TAC? I'm sure it wouldn't do the trust factor any good for
people to know that the guy inspecting their car today may be testifying
against them tomorrow!! And you still don't seem to get my point about not
commenting beyond presenting the list of Authenticated cars. I'm sure most
of us out here can subtract two from three and get one. If you tell us the
cars that have been authenticated and also tell us when you have never seen
a car, then what are you going to say when you have inspected a car and it
didn't pass? It's a little late for a "No comment" then. You have to
respond with a consistent "No comment", otherwise we'll all know that "No
comment" = Alger!!
Finally, I hope you don't think it was me who thought you were "an arrogant
asshole". I have absolutely no reason to think you're an asshole. I do
think you went off a little half-cocked the first time around. This time
you've quadrupled the load and actually passed on some significant
information along with your opinions. I think we'll all be mulling this
over for awhile.
Endlessly amazed in San Diego,
Bob
At 03:55 PM 8/25/98 -0400, PLRRESTO@aol.com wrote:
>All,
>
>Man! Oh man! Take off for a few hours, come back and look at all this. All in
>one sitting, I'm everything from a godsend to an arrogant asshole.
Actually, I
>figure I'm something in between. So where do I start?
>
>Normally, I try to stay out of these TAC discussions; I don't have the time,
>but more importantly, I believe it is better to have persons not directly
>associated with the program making the responses.This I think shows that
there
>is a broader base of support for the program than if I got up and threw
out my
>ramblings on a continual basis. I think it's great when Bob Palmer, Frank
>Marrone, Steve Laifman, Jan Harde,and countless others make my arguments for
>me. But, once in a while someone comes along and makes a statement that is
>either incorrect or could be misinterpreted. The latter,I believe, is the
case
>here. I received 3 postings,two privately and one on the Tiger list from Mr.
>Parent, all saying basicly the same thing. All three made the assumption that
>Mr. Palmer's statement about "certified experts' implied that TAC inspectors
>had looked at MK2 #523 and were now giving out information as to it's
identity
>as a conversion. Of course these gentlemen should be concerned, this would be
>a major change in a long existing policy. Thus, my posting. I tried to make
>this clear in my second paragraph, but let me restate it. The only official
>STOA Tiger Authentication Committee spokesperson is the TAC Chairman. As the
>TAC Chairman and spokesperson, I am not authorized to give out any
information
>about Alpine conversions discovered at our TAC inspections to anyone
including
>club members, Norm Miller, club presidents, Tiger listers etc., etc. The only
>info given out is for authenticated ( TACed ) Tigers. That's our policy.
>Period. Needless to say, all other TAC personnel are not supposed to say
>anything about cars inspected. To some, TAC doesn't go far enough; to others,
>we've gone to far already. I guess you can't please everyone, so we
decided to
>take the middle road.
>
>Now, on to this discussion about experts. perhaps the best way to express my
>views on this is to start with a short history. When STOA began this program,
>they started with a small group of three "core" inspectors, Norm Miller, Tom
>Hall, and Mike Andres. All three of which have spent half of their adult
lives
>in, around and under Sunbeam Tigers. Back then, they had plenty of knowledge
>about the differences between Tigers and Alpines and the factory methods used
>in assembling these cars. And they when off authenticating Tigers all over
the
>San Fransisco Bay area. Before long, however, the core group saw the need for
>more inspectors if the program was to expand.A training program was soon
>established complete with exams to qualify new inspectors. Most all of the
new
>inspector trainees came to the program with limited background experience
with
>these cars, but were taught everything they needed to know. As part of this
>training though, some of the infomation was and still is withheld just in
>case someone decides to speak out and leak information that is crucial to the
>long term sucess of the program. At this point I think everyone can see that
>the core inspectors had created two classes of inspectors- those that knew
all
>the known information and those that knew roughly 90%. Then I came along and
>pushed the committee to develop an organizational document to cover all the
>stuff we kept talking about at all the meetings. At this point we officially
>created two rankings of inspectors- regular and senior. All senior inspectors
>are privy to all known information/data and we believe have the knowledge to
>identify any Alpine conversion. Regular inspectors, we figure would be
capable
>of picking out about 90% of conversions presented for inspection. About the
>time these documents were being developed, Rick McLeod and myself were
>elevated to Senior inspector positions, because of our background experience.
>Subsequently, Mr. McLeod has resigned for personal reasons, Mr. Miller has
>dropped his STOA membership and given up his Senior inspector credentials,
but
>is still a regular inspector although inactive. More recently, Larry Atkisson
>of Seattle, Washington has been granted senior inspector statis as well. This
>brings the current number of active Senior inspectors to four with two
>retirees.
>So, why do I bring all this up? Because I'm going to go out on a limb and
call
>all six of us "experts". Experts because we all posess all the knownledge
>necessary to identify any Alpine conversion no matter how close it is to the
>real thing. Regular inspectors I'm not going to call experts, but rather (for
>this discussion anyway) "highly knowledgable" of the differences between
>Alpines and Tigers and the factory assembly methods and technigues used to
>create these cars. And no, none of us has seen MK2 #523. Does this make me am
>arrogant asshole?Ya guess so.
>
>Are Jan Harde and Dick Barker experts? I'm not going to touch this one. Are
>they highly knowledgable? Most likely. Perhaps. I don't know; it would be
news
>to me. Look, I'm willing to admit there might be some other authentication
>experts out there as I define them, but I don't know of them. If there are
>any, I'd like to meet them.As for Jan and Dick, I'm sure that if they think
>they are experts, they'll let me know. Maybe I'll be sending out a few exams.
>
>One more point before I put everyone to sleep.Quite often, I read or hear
>statements implying that TAC and the registry are the same or at least
>connected. They are not. TAC is a STOA program, the registry or TIROST
belongs
>to Norm Miller. STOA TAC is slowly compiling a list of real Tigers by visual
>inspection; the registry is a list of all known Tigers- real or otherwise
with
>some info collected visually, some by word of mouth, and some inherited by
>George Fallahy. I do believe however that the two programs do complement one
>another. Norm has on occasion supplied us with VIN numbers to Tigers with
>state-assigned ID or no ID at all. In return, we supply him with TAC #'s of
>authenticated cars and occasionally corrections to errors in the factory
>records. Another point here being that as far as authenticity, TAC records
are
>more accurate overall because the information is collected first hand by
three
>inspectors. TIROST on the other hand may have to rely on second or even third
>hand information in some instances. In no way am I belittling the registry's
>significance to this issue, only noting a slight drawback. All and all, I
>think that with both programs in existance, any buyer looking for a real
Tiger
>should have no problem finding what he want.
>
>And lastly a short note. This last weekend , the TAC inspection team of Larry
>Atkisson, Tom Bennett, and Starke Shelby went to Vancouver Island, B.C. to
>authenticate Tigers. With the organizational efforts of Mr. Frank Csordas
they
>managed to add 12 Tigers to the list bringing the current total to 321 TACed
>Tigers. I even understand they all had a great time as well. Thanks again,
>guys.
>
>I love it when a program comes together.
>
>'Til next time
>
>Paul Reisentz
>STOA TAC Chairman
>
Robert L. Palmer
Dept. of AMES, Univ. of Calif., San Diego
rpalmer@ames.ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
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