It's interesting to read this discussion just now. A few days ago someone wrote to me at the Stanley Register Online [
www.stanleyregister.net], saying he'd looked up the serial number of his car and found a different car already listed with that number. Now, both of these cars could be considered re-creations, assembled probably 10-15 years apart, using bodies and parts from various sources. The writer's car includes an original part identified with the serial number in question. He asks "Which car is the real [serial#], that one or mine?"
My goal in maintaining the Register is to list every Stanley that there is, together with distinguishing information about each. Regardless of the background of any of these cars, they're not Buicks or Packards. They're not "street rods", old bodies with newer mass-production powerplants. They have boilers and burners; 2-cylinder steam engines on the rear axle; pumps, tanks, automatics, and throttles; coffin-nosed hoods or tillers or condensers.
Hopefully there will be enough information in the Register listings that anyone who feels they need to make a judgment about using a word like "original", "real", "authentic", "reproduction", etc., will be able to do so for themselves. I will probably have to reply to this writer that I can't answer his question, as there is not an accepted definition for "real".
But this is a topic that will always warrant reflection and re-evaluation. I'd be interested in people's current opinions.
Kelly