1941 Church Army Chevrolets

[Les Freathy]

Hello Bill
thanks for the welcome, strange old world is it not i have known of your name for many years from way back in the 70s via my old mate Mike Conniford but always thought you were an Aussie. Obviously not, i gather from trawling websites that your interest of softskins covers many nations mine to but allied get the preference. I do have some interesting items to include that should cause some good interest , a question ? under what catagory do you find photos on E Bay

[Bill Murray]

Evening Les:
Good to hear back from you so soon and thanks for the many photos posted already on several threads. Almost all of them were new to me.
Yes, Mike mentioned your name to me as well. We corresponded fairly heavily during the 70s and 80s and traded tons of stuff.
Sadly, when I left Saab and started my own business in 1991, I had to leave the hobby for about 10 years and lost a lot of contacts. I ask, with hesitation, is Mike still with us?? I have not seen anything published by him for quite some years now.

My interest in soft skins used to be sort of universal, anything from about 1930 into the early 1990s. When I came back in 2000 more or less, I pared it back to a focus on vehicles of American brands used by armed forces outside the US in the military arena and as well civilian vehicles of American brands used in other countries. I also cut the time frame from about 1932-1945.
Doesn't matter if they were exported, sent as kits or manufactured elsewhere just so long as there is a US brand association.

Obviously, my long associatin with Bart Vanderveen, who was my mentor, teacher and sort of Rabbi, left me with a collection that allows me to dabble in vehicles of many makes from many countries and to the extent that I can, I am sort of a "go to guy" for ID questions. Often wrong but always enthusiastic and trying hard.

To the ebay question, here is what I do.

Ebay.de: You will have to enter in the fields of interest the following.
Kaufe
Sammler & Seltene
Militarie
1918-1945
These are on drop down menus as I recall.

In the "suche" field, I have entered and saved the following:
lkw
pkw
fahrzeuge
Beute
And then the brand name of vehicles such as Opel, Mercedes, Ford etc. These last are separate searches.

On ebay US, I use the following

Collectables
militaria
WWII
Germany (or whatever country)
truck
car
vehicle
vehicles by brand

I have not had much success on ebay UK, Sweden or Australia but I may have to refine my search methods.

Be aware that the ones I listed on the top two ebays can bury you in photos, hundreds per week and it takes a lot of time to plow through them all. Still, I save maybe 20 decent ones a week for reference purposes.

Hope that helps a bit.
Regards
Bill