Vintage Cars: loomis horseless carriage, horseless carriage club, antique automobile club

Question
I am appraising an estate that contains a loomis automobile. I have not found another one to compare to as far as i can tell at this point it is the only one.It was made in westfield mass 1896-1904 by Mr. loomis before that he made victor bicycles and and victor steam automobiles to name a few things about his back ground.I was able to get history it very interesting.The vehicle was restored in the fifties and is in good shape.the owner has a hand written letter from Mr Gilbert loomis before he pass away in 1963 any body knows of any other loomis vehicles around let me know Jerry geraldlinen@aol.com 518-237-1884

Answer
In my reading over the last year, I've found a couple of interesting tidbits about Mr. Loomis. It appears that Mr. Loomis, a wonderful and talented engineer, was a poor businessman. This was a common tale in the early days of the Horseless Carriage. Probably not more than 500 cars bearing his name were ever built during the 1900-1904 run of the Loomis marque, so the car you were looking at was a pretty rare automobile.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Loomis went on (after having sold the Loomis manufacturing operation to Samuel Squires of Westfield, MA) to work as an engineer for Pope (on the Pope-Tribune) and more notably as the chief engineer for Speedwell of Dayton, Ohio. The Speedwell was a magnificent automobile for it's time, very advanced and well-engineered. A couple of poor business decisions in 1914 and a major flood which destroyed the factory killed the company rather than any defect in their automobile.

Dick.