Ford dealership badges from the incredible collection of the Wanderwell Expeditions

the Wanderwells did 2 expeditions in the 1920s and 30's through the USA, Argentina, and Italy, one through England, Mexico, Guatemala, Phillipines, Brazil and Czechoslovakia, and 7 through Germany

Such a remarkable collection.. I doubt there is another one that compares. 

Thanks to Richard Diamond, Aloha Wanderwell's grandson.

If you haven't seen my previous posts about the Wanderwells, and don't know what I'm referring to, well, to be brief, in the 1920's a guy was wandering around the world with a camera and a movie camera, and finding it really hard to get across continents where roads and gas stations didn't exist. He documented the adventures with the cameras, and when he got to towns and cities, he'd put on a show and tell the stories, and show the movies, and thrill the locals with tales of foreign lands. Once when going through France, he put an ad in the newspaper for a bilingual translator to join him, and Aloha responded, and joined him on the adventures, and they then publized the trips as (truthfully) the first woman to drive across Africa, for example, and the first woman to drive around the world. In 1929, this was incredible adventure stuff!

and people across the world were in love with the new things being invented, the new places being discovered, and the news of adventures was the most amazing thing ever to people who were the 1st of hundreds of years of their family line to not do exactly the same thing that dozens of generations before them has done. This era was the break from agrarian culture, from candles and canoes, to gas lamps, electricity, cars and airplanes. 

I wanted to point that out, because it was an amazing thing the Wanderwells did, they were the last of the people who could be pioneers to new places no Europeans had ever seen, the first to ever drive to countries, and most people now forget what a risky thing it was for whites, and women, to go beyond their own front door. Aloha was only 16 years old when she joined, and had been living in a convent in Paris. 

For my previous coverage: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/12/wanderwell-expedition-was-way-for-16.html 

These badges are just a few of the ones displayed on this car 

and this earlier car