New Era's End

In April 1929, New Era Motors, Inc. was formed. Heading it was an archpromoter of the New Era, Arch M. Andrews. It was the year that Promoter Andrews, one day in Chicago, announced to friends that he was 50 years old and 50 times a millionaire. Hard indeed would it be to trace the course of either Promoter Andrews or his fortune during those 50 years but Andrews acquaintances readily believe his story that he made his first money doing a song & dance number with his brother in the back rooms of Chicago saloons. He still is a lively ban joist, but plays now in "Freestone Castle," his

Greenwich, Conn, home, or in his Pasadena colonial house, or aboard his yachts Zatna and Sialia. Chicagoans remember when he became a partner in D. A. Tyng & Co., Chicago over-the-counter house. They also remember how that firm ended in a flurry of indictments. Promoter Andrews came out of that crash unscathed. He went to Manhattan, prospered in stocks and buildings; went to Los Angeles, prospered in stocks, hotels, penny slot-machines. So greatly did he prosper that he could play the market in company with that once great bull William Crapo Durant. He became and still is a director of Hupp Motor Car Corp. and of Budd Wheel Co.

With so agile and active a head, New Era Motors seemed bound to have a dashing history. Some months after it was formed, it acquired the Ruxton patents for a front-wheel drive. Rights to manufacture Ruxtons were sold to Moon Motor Co. Also, William Crapo Durant sold to Moon rights to manufacture his American cotton picker, of which much has been said, not much seen. New Era Motors received 150,000 shares of Moon in the deal, soon decided to oust the old Moon management. This was done. In the struggle, aided by tales of the cotton picker, Moon rose to $16-c- a share. But Ruxtons were never produced commercially and fewer Moons have been sold this year than last. Last week Moon stock, selling at 75 cents, was stricken from the New York Stock Exchange for failure to maintain a Manhattan transfer office. A total Moon eclipse was widely predicted. Last week an end came to New Era Motors with a voluntary petition in bank ruptcy. Assets were listed at $317,000; liabilities at $855,000. Strange seemed the fact that last year New Era Motors paid a $600,000 dividend on the common. A big New Investment Era Co., with creditor a is A. claim M. for Andrews $293,000. And a lucky creditor is Promoter Arch Andrews. His individual claim of $77,200 is secured by the Ruxton patents, almost certain to be of use when the next New Era dawns.

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