[Spridgets] Interesting item on EBay - Austin Healey Infant Seat

[ldsp]

Interesting item indeed.......  Thanks, Martin, for posting the link from 
Ebay.  Biff is correct in that I no longer have "one"  of the known Bugeye 
baby seats.  Seeing as how the seller lives close to where I live, I made an 
appointment to go look at it and compare it to photos of the one I once 
owned and pictures in Horlers book...  Since I have owned one  and since 
passed it on to another owner I have always questioned the issue of 
"originality".  If something, be it a baby seat, or an interior panel, 
specific in its apperance and constructtion, or a badge such as the OLD 
cloisine enamel BMW motorcycle emblems, or other vintage automobile itemss 
has been dissasembled and major peices of  them replaced with more modern 
materials is it an "origianal"????  Or does it become a "reproduction" 
simply as the result of having  been rebuilt to make it more astheticaly 
presentable.    Could you repair a Stradavarius that was missing the neck by 
replacing the missing neck with one made of modern materials and redoing the 
finish to blend the seperate components, and if so would it still be a 
Stradavarius because the "body is still present", or would it at that point 
become a "reproduction" at that stage?  Is the "value" in the "name" of an 
item, or is the value in the patina and unrestored condition of an 
"original"    Ahhhh... the issues we ponder...

Leo