vintage vans at christies museum

[firefighter]

Hi

while at corowa also visted Christies museum at Tocumwal nsw
what a ripper of a museum this is ,4 vintage vans 1 of them is a very early 1920s camper van on wooden spoke wheels
this museum was at kinglake vic and mr christie retired and moved it to Tocumwal I do have a lot more photos of the museums other items on display
van made from corrugated iron

check out the wood fire stove

nice neat vintage van with a bath .......towed by a zephyr







the bath
interesting history on this next van





check out the wooden draw bar & bolt


teardrop behind a consul





20s camper van with wooden spoke wheels
outside

inside



wooden spoke wheel.....wheel spat hinges up


early steel camping chair



F/F ;D ;D ;D ;D

[scootman]

Great Pics Firefighter

[Franklin1]

Hey F/f, seems like this is a definate place to visit!! Great photos, and I particularly liked the photographer's van...looks like it was once a Hansom cab, or at least modelled on one.
I'll certainly be making the effort to go see the museum next time I'm in that neck of the woods! Great stuff.

cheers,
Al.

[skyline59]

G'day Firefighter, love the photo's , will definetly call in & have a look next time i'm up that way, Regards Brett.

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Firefighter,

Just catching up on a few posts after being away for three weeks.

Thanks for alerting us to Christie's Museum, and also the vans at the Mulwala pioneer museum. It's really good to know about these places so that we can organise our travel to visit them at some point.

The vans at Tocumwal look to be in very good nick, and being under cover is obviously very helpful in that regard. Bit of a contrast to the vans at the museuam at Buangor which a few of us have checked out. It would be wonderful if the latter could also be stored under cover before they deteriorate much further.

Do you know if the van behind the Zephyr was home built or manufactured? It is a bit reminiscent of some of the Gason vans I've seen pictures of. Did you see any manufacturers plates, etc?

The photographer's van has got to be a second cousin of Reddo's Fugly van, don' t you think? ;D

Thanks again for letting us know about the museums - good info to have.

Regards,

Don Ricardo

[firefighter]

the 1930 van that the photographer travelled around vic in......
mr christie would like to find out more info on this van and the photographer..........i belive this van was found up in the croydon area of melb
F/F ;D ;D ;D

[cobber]

G'day F F.

Not only some great old van photos there, but the
memorabilia laying around is good stuff to see
too..... good enough to have some of these pictures
put in the "Memorabilia" section of the site I suggest... the photographers
van and the PMG one particularly.

Thanks for posting them, sounds like you had a good trip.

Cobber.

[humpty2]

Hey Cobber.....did you notice the Coleman stove on the back of the teardrop van?......seen one of them around somewhere!!

[cobber]

Yes ..... I did notice the Coleman Humpty, and I would have been lusting after it if it wasn’t for the fact that I have a nice 1936 model thanks to you. You know, you can still get parts for models that old

Cobber.

[korongking]

Hi Went for a drive today to test out the son in laws Brougham stopped in at Christies I loved it ,if you are a collector you would be sure to find something that would tickle your fancy.
Had good talk to Mr Christie he is one of natures gentlemen ,he was wrapped to find out that his place was on our site, will get his missus to have a look tonight(HI MRS CHRISTIE). If you get the chance to have a look at this excellent museum you will not regret the effort .
Can be a little bit hard to find as it only has a small sign that just says Museum & it is on a gravel road about a K or so from the Tocumwal/Cobram Road(Thanks to the nice lady at the Toc info who gave us a map it made it much easier) so if you are heading up or down the Newell make a point of stopping in Toc to see this top museum!!
P.S: Toc has some really good anteeky stores, if you go into the PURPLE WOMBAT say hello to Kerry .

[Roehm3108]

Great pics A/T and a great place to visit by the looks!
Did no-one notice the GENUINE PROPERT egg beater!!!! Yes, invented by the man himself
Cobber, I have one of those Coleman stoves - must be an older model than the one in the pic, is it doesn't have the side shields. Mine is a Coleman Jubilee, and when I contacted Coleman some years ago on how they work, they had never heard of them!!! Have you tried using yours without blowing up yourself or the van?
Ray

[cobber]

G’day Ray,

The one I got from Humpty still has that yellow label on the lid intact...it says something to the effect “registered design xxxxxx 1936” and it has the side wind shields that I would say belong to it.
I had to do some work on the generator to clean up it’s insides and she worked OK, but I thought maybe a new generator would work better, so I got one from BBQ galore (bits are much the same as recent models) and she worked about the same.

I cooked bacon and eggs for brekkie and T bone steak and sausages + eggs for dinner on it down at Coledale, and nobody even complained about the generator noise ;D ;D ;D ;D

Cobber.

[Deleted]

Caaaaawww Albert

T BONE STEAK ....did you manage to eat it with your own teeff or did ya puree it with MR Properts eggbeater

Your lovin son
'Arold

Generator ...... What have i told you about swearing in public ... you dirty, dirty ol' man.

[Don Ricardo]

During my recent travels "up North" (NSW ;D ;D ;D), I had the pleasure of visiting Chrystie's Museum at Tocumwal, first introduced to us by Firefighter.

The museum has recently acquired a wind-up, collapsible, bondwood caravan built by a Victorian, Mr George Davis, from plans contained in an American magazine (something 'mechanics', maybe Popular Mechanics?) in 1942. George commenced building his van in 1944 and took five years to complete it. It was featured in the Melbourne Sun newspaper in 1950. The caravan is currently stored in a shed amongst a whole lot of other stuff, which made it difficult to photograph, but the Chrysties were happy for me to take as many pics as I liked, and I did like.

Kerb side from front:



The wire door and frame detaches and stores inside the van when the upper section is wound down.

Driver's side from rear:



The upper half of the caravan winds down over the bottom half for traveling. The winding mechanism is controlled by a winch mechanism under the caravan midway down the kerb side, as shown below. Note the bracket to the left of the mechanism on which the top half rests when wound down:



The next photo shows one of the guide wheels at the front of the van for the cable which raises and lowers the top section. Note again the bracket on which the top half rests:



A picture of the back of the van showing the cable:



The next photo shows the felt attached to the edge of the upper section which I presume dust and windproofed the van when it was wound up:



Pretty standard coupling:



Now for some pics from inside the van. At front is a double bed, which looked fixed:





At the rear of the vans was a dinette which folds down to a double bed:



The Davis children were probably well disciplined. If their father said he was going for the rifle, he obviously meant it! ;D ;D ;D



Kitchenette (to state the obvious, the refrigerator is not original):



The overhead cupboard to the right of the next photo contains a flue for the stove.



A couple of features inside the van reflect the fact that it is a collapsible caravan. Note the curve on the back of the cupboard in the following photo to fit the curve of the roof when the van is collapsed:



There are little roller wheels attached to the bottom edge of the inside of the upper section of the van to guide the section as it is wound down:



George Davis towed the van as far afield as Cairns and Adelaide, but his favourite spots were along the Murray River. For this reason he called his van 'Murray Moon':



There are also little moon symbols placed in various places inside the van, some of which can be seen in the photos above. His favourite camping spot was on the river near Boundary Bend, and locals ended up calling it Murray Moon Corner after George and his caravan.

The Chrysties told me that visitors have shown a lot of interest in the caravans in their collection (now totaling five). For this reason they are currently extending the museum building so that they can put all the caravans together in a display. They have a whole collection of photos of the Murray Moon caravan (including one of George Davis hauling his tinny inside the van before winding it down), and have been collecting other caravan paraphenalia, such as leaflets, etc. They have an early Roma brochure but couldn't find it while I was there.

The museum includes a great collection of cars and trucks, and I spent a really interesting two and a half hours there. Well worth a visit - particularly when the caravan display is set up.

Don Ricardo

[humpty2]

2 1/2hours Don you must have run through
We checked out Christies museum on our way back from Mt. Gambier and found it absolutely fascinating, especially all of the caravans. This is a must see place for all and the fees are reasonable.