Keeping track of every Jaguar E-Type, with your help.
xkedata > blog > category > deep-thoughts

I have a few details to attend to, and I need to order one for myself to make sure they’re OK quality, but I’ve prepared a half-dozen each of XK and E-Type mosaic posters, mostly pulling from old calendar shots. If they prove to be something which sells, I’ll add more over time. Each poster will be 35″ x 23″ and features 5476 unique photos — no repeated photos on any one poster!

The XK and E-Type sites are the only two which have enough exterior photos of the right size to build these mosaics, though I may do a couple of C-Type and D-Type posters using E-Type and XK images.

The photos on the full-size poster are fairly small, five thumbnails measure two inches across, but they’re discernible.

Posters will be priced at about $30 or just under. Remember a large part of that goes to Cafe Press, and the rest is put towards keeping the doors open here. I’ll probably do a quantity discount but let’s see if any sell at all.

Below is a sample showing Chuck Goolsbee’s S1 E-Type, # 1E10715.

I hope to have these all available towards the end of the week.

I hope to have the E-Type calendar available sometime next week (maybe by December 10). I’m not sure, exactly, which other calendars might make it into production this year. I can probably find enough XK photos, but I’ll have to wait and see what I find for the others.

If you’ve written me about a site issue or other inquiry in the past three (!) months, I hope to get to your query in the next week or so. I let correspondence accumulate until the weight of it starts an avalanche and I’m about to be buried–sorry about that!

If you use firefox, there are three “personas” I’ve created which you might enjoy using. One for xkedata, one for xkdata, and one for coventry racers. (The new Firefox 4 layout has the XKE persona looking a bit busy, I might edit it or add a new one.)

You can find them here: Carcrux personas. Enjoy!

I received this the other night, and since I’ve received a few of these over the years, thought I would post it and my thoughts on it. You’re welcome to chime in.

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 2:15 AM
Subject: [XKEDATA]
==========
this site should be closed down ,if any one wants to clown a car ,they will start here by typing in a chassis number and if no details come up ,bingo lets build a car

Is that easier than just finding a crappy restoration project somewhere to get a set of real numbers, including legit title documents?

If not, why would the criminals care if the car was on the site before making their clown, er, clone? Just because a car isn’t here doesn’t mean it’s missing; indeed, there have been around ten already-existing clones discovered via these sites. (Most of the time it doesn’t seem all that malicious, just sloppy record-keeping.)

It would cost at least $100,000 to build a car from scratch via parts if you had to pay for the labor. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy a decent one? The only cars that might be exceptions to this are the very rare variants–but the survivors and the fate of their siblings are generally well-known, anyway, and will come under pretty intense scrutiny if a new one resurfaces.

Puzzled,

Roger

Short and sweet: Check out the calendar previews. (Some images are preliminary.) They should go on sale by December 1, price will be the same as last year, $20.

Where Does the Money Go?

We use a “print on demand” service provider, Cafe Press, to print our calendars. This, unfortunately, means the price is fairly high and even so we don’t get  a lot of it back. Cafe Press keeps $15 and the “data sites” get $5 for each calendar sold.

These sites are run on a shoe-string budget–there is no real advertising, no subscription fees, no memberships, and no other beg-a-thons (so far!) to help with the running costs. The proprietor is not independently wealthy, either!

These calendars are our one major effort to raise a bit of cash each year.

We cannot afford to have calendars printed by a traditional press without a guaranteed sale number. The unit cost would be considerably cheaper, but it would be a financial disaster for the sites if we ordered $5,000 worth of calendars and only sold $1,000…or fewer. Last year we sold a total of 125 calendars.

My Car is in the Calendar, Shouldn’t I Get a Free One?

We’d love to be able to do so, but with the print-on-demand calendars, we still have to pay Cafe Press for each copy we order. Let’s say this year we manage to sell 200 calendars (up considerably from last year). 200 x $5 =$800 to put towards hosting costs. We have four different calendars, call it a total of 48 different cars. 48 x $15 = $720 our cost just to buy them, and probably at least another $200 in postage (most owners are overseas). Now imagine we only sell 100…yikes!

We do feel a bit chintzy about no free calendar for folks whose cars are featured, but it’s a non-starter.

Is this really the only fund-raiser? What about the eBay stuff and “donate” button?

We do make a bit each month from eBay, but the competition in that space is pretty fierce and the return doesn’t amount to much. Any time you click on an ebay affiliate link from someone else (if you see that the ebay link goes to “rover.ebay.com” it’s an affiliate), it knocks us out even if you originally linked, and bid, from a link here. There are a number of people who have set up eBay search pages which mimic ours, and where the only service they provide is a link to eBay, but that’s the way things go.

We’d love it if everyone only went to eBay from our links and subsequently bought lots of stuff–but until that actually happens the returns are very modest.

As for the donate button, ten people have donated in the nine years we’ve been online. We’re grateful to them but  you can see it’s not really a source of income.

Here it is late November and I’m just getting around to prepping the calendars. Please expect to find them on sale in early December…sorry about the delay. I think there may be a “motorsports” Jaguar calendar in addition to the XK and XKE items. Perhaps a Healey calendar as well.

I’d like to publish calendars by early November, so I need your photos by the middle of October. Here’s where we are, photo-wise:

XKs: Some great photos, looks to be a strong calendar this year. There are two or three photos which are not quite up to the rest (while still plenty nice and certainly usable), so upload your great shot in the next couple of weeks and there’s a good chance it will make it in.

E-Types: A strong year this year. I have a couple of photos which could be replaced if really strong contenders appear–especially if they were of an S2.

Coventry Racers: Probably not going to happen this year as I have no new photos at hand worthy of a calendar. Last year’s selection of shots was courtesy of two gentlemen, for the most part–I don’t want to press my luck this year by asking for more!

Saloons, XJ6, XJ-S: I think I have enough photos to publish a “catch-all” Jaguar calendar of “everything but sports cars,” though the selection is nowhere as strong as the sporting machines. If you have good shots of your classic saloon, XJ-S or XJ sedan, upload them!

Healeys: I think I can publish a Healey calendar this year, I have enough decent photos, but, again, if you have some great photos of a Healey, upload them to the site.

If you want your photo considered, upload it at a high resolution to the site and be sure to include your email address in the right slot (it doesn’t appear on the site in any decipherable form).

Just to remind folks, as cheap as this seems, I cannot provide anything other than my thanks for letting me use your photo. I have to buy the calendars like everyone else and only sell about 100 per year…I’d spend more than I make providing complementary copies! This is an exercise to pay for this site’s hosting, which costs upwards of $1,000 per year.

I’m not sure we’ll be able to repeat the Coventry Racers calendar as I’m not sure I have 12 new photos to choose from. But maybe! And if you have good shots of your Healey, XK, XKE or Saloon Jaguar, upload them to the site! Be sure to leave your email address in the contact field.

I won’t be able to lower prices this year as I don’t think I can take a risk on investing a ton of money up front without a known number of sales. I’ll do a bit of poking around, again, but it isn’t promising.

Ah, what could be a better way to start off the holiday weekend than another email from someone outraged over the site(s):

I placed my information on your site concerning my Austin  Healey # HBT7Lxxxxx and I was not able to edit the information I meant to say xxxxxx is my cars real number.  Later I find out this information is put out all over the internet search sites, that is my personal business, you have violated my trust in your website. This information is meant only for those fellow Healey owners on this site only. If you can’t remove the information from these search engines I will have to take action and I will have to withdraw my information from your site. Believe me I will talk to each and every Healey owner, about your practices. I would give you a phone number, to reach me, but I am afraid it also would be plastered all over the internet like my Healey information was. Let know what you are going to do about this matter.

Sigh.

1. Where in any of the information on these sites does it suggest that this is some sort of private owners-only club? The sites’ raison d‘être is exactly the opposite of that, and while I welcome owners I do not, nor do I want to, cater exclusively to them, as much as that pains a few of them.

2. Folks must arrive at this site somehow (via a google search, perhaps?) and (I imagine) browse a bit before they enter their information, if they do. I thought it was apparent that nothing is hidden here; everyone can see everything. My hope is that the sites’ openness and non-exclusivity foster enthusiasm among those who aren’t owners–and encourage them to join us on our journey to bankruptcy and ruin, er, enjoying our cars!

   Do I really need to let people know that search engines crawl these sites (just like the rest of the internet)? I go through reasonable pains here to allow people to be anonymous–owners as well–and to provide ways for people to get in touch without revealing any personal information. That said, if you decide to sign your name to a comment, it will be picked up eventually by google and others, I imagine.

3. Would the outraged of the world please quit with the blowhard stuff? I tend to smile, not tremble.

4. Has no one ever heard the adage about flies, honey, vinegar and all that? I normally try to work with people when they get their underwear in a bunch, but I’m far less inclined to when it’s Internet Tough Guy on the other line.

All that said, I removed this car from the Healey site. I used to fret about losing track of cars in this fashion, but at this point I could give a rat’s behind. Keeping track of a single car with an unpleasant owner just isn’t worth it. I’m posting this little missive so I can point future angry folks here without having to type it all up again. Shades of the (apocryphal?) bedbug letter!

I need a vacation! Anyone want to float me a trip to Goodwood?