The Dot in Douglas.

[alwyn]

Trevor said..

i think we need to have a topic about the dot after douglas or is this a confirmed fact ? Trevor

Well I guess this is a small 'point' about which to start a new topic! - but let's see where it leads.

I have always believed the sign-written label of 'Douglas' was followed by a full stop (point) as a matter of tradition, though I inferred earlier to it being customary - whether it was a deliberate and official policy of the Douglas company or merely tradition or custom is probably what is being questioned.

Perhaps someone somewhere has some historic documents to show it was policy? - if so we would like to hear from you.

That it was customary I think is borne out by reference to illustrations and photos carried in such publications as Jeff Clew's 'The Best Twin', Peter Carrick's - World Motor Cycles, 'Douglas' and Harold Briercliffe and Eric Brockway's 'The Illustrated History of Douglas Motor Cycles'. There are exceptions which throw the likelihood of it being rigid Douglas policy into some doubt but overwhelmingly the majority of instances in the reference books show the point after the name.

Illustrations of machines as early as 1907 and through to the late 20's predominately show the point? - it seems not to appear so frequently on machines of the 30's or on post-war models although I believe transfers provided for these machines over recent years have been supplied with the point attached? - has anyone purchased these of late and able to confirm if this is so?

Let's have your opinions!
Alwyn
Site Mod

[Ian]

I have a photo of an OC600 on the Douglas stand at the 1926 Earls Court (I think) show - it has the dot !!

[trevorp]

at first i thought it was fiction but then i looked at my douglas books and all the douglas model books have the dot even the one here on the forum
Trevor
ill be putting a dot on my tank

[alwyn]

There's a nice photo of a 1952 350cc Mk IV Douglas photographed at the 2004 Bristol Classic Bike show HERE that has the 'dot' - wonder was it supplied originally with the 'dot' and in that colour?
Alwyn
Site Mod

[Doug]

I also at first said to myself, "What dot?"  But then had a closer look and there it was in some pictures.

Looking at catalog pictures and period (pun not intended) photos the dot seems to have gone out of favor in the late twenties.  The catalog pictures are not entirely reliable and subject to artistic license, as the specifications for the 1927 OC shows both sides of the machine, one with and one without dot!  Before this the use of the dot seems to occasionally be omitted, as a picture of the Douglas stand at the 1919 Olympia show has no dot on the marquee.  But most photos before the late twenties show a dot.  

The occasions where you see a dot on later machines, like post-war models, are instances where one can not rule out a restoration or replacement of the transfers incorrectly including the dot.  I was not able to find a period photo of a post 1930 machine or company logo with dot in what literature I have excluding one example.  That exception was in some publicity photos for the 1935 Endeavour [Briercliffe & Brockway, pg 68] showing a dot on one side and none on the other, but again these are clearly retouched photos.  Likewise contemporary photos of veteran and vintage models without the dot, the instances where missing, look like machines that could have been restored and the dot incorrectly omitted.  So sometime in the late twenties it looks like the dot went out of use.  

The transfers have been available for Douglas machines for a long time, and no doubt over the years have been incorrectly made (and remade) with and without dot to further confuse matters for us folks today.  For example the varnish affixing ones I got in the mid-eighties for my 1934 (white with black border) and Mark 3 (white with gold border) both have dots, though the evidence indicates this is incorrect.  A snip with the scissors before application can quickly correct this!

-Doug

[trevorp]

This puts an intersting twist on where the dot goes

[alwyn]

This puts an intersting twist on where the dot goes

The dot is not the only thing shown in error in this mural - the font is wrong too! - guess it's just artistic licence.

Alwyn

[Doug]

Well not quite a 'wrong' font, it was something Douglas was experimenting with. The scan below is from another bit of 1938 Douglas literature:



It was just a temporary fad, they went back to the tried and 'true' Douglas script!

But they never used this font on a petrol tank, and I think it can be considered separate and apart from what they may have used in literature and advertising from time to time. The traditional script, with or without dot, is all I have ever seen on tanks from the latter veteran era till the end.

Yet in catalogs and advertising, I do not think I have ever seen a dot. This may explain why the marquee mentioned above is dot-less in an era when the petrol tanks used a dot. So perhaps there was some now forgotten logic that on the tank a dot was appropriate, but in general literature it was not.

-Doug