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Somebody here is tracking Chalets...not sure if this one is accounted for?

eric67camino said:

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Rough, orphaned camper unit.
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Poor thing, with standing water on the roof no less. Nice that the seller put in a photo of the SN plate, it's #0588, a '76 model year unit, though. It'll fill the gap in my mega-spreadsheet between #0587 and #0589. Thanks for catching this! Odd bit is the completely square windows. I have seen unidentified one other one with similar giant rectangular windows on a '77 model year one in Yakima WA (see pic below from a 2011 Craigslist ad) instead of the smaller rear-slanted windows, which makes me wonder if the Chinook company arbitrarily installed these on maybe two rigs, or if it is just a coincidence that a couple of owners bashed out the smaller ones and put in bigger aftermarket ones ....

Yakima Chalet 1.jpg
 
Thanks for the alert about the eBay Chalet #1739 in St George Utah, another guy alerted me to it last night, too -- the more eyes out there to find these, the better. It wasn't showing up in my bookmarked eBay search link for Chalets. This is the same seller who had it on Craigslist and KSL classifieds in Utah in 2016, most of the photos date from back then. Note that he says the roof is sealed shut. Good luck for any buyer on finding a way to unstick the entire thing, if the glue he used was good stuff.
 
kennyw said:

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Huge thanks for that catch! One more possible favor - no obligation - but my ability to send PMs in Facebook is now gone because my web browser on my obsolete computer is one increment too far out of date and isn't upgradable (such is the tragedy of being poor). Could you PM the seller and ask if he can share photos of the original Blazer he included with the sale, and if he can snag a photo of the serial number plate on the back of the camper and also share the VIN of the original Blazer? I can be contacted via email at the Chalet site. http://blazerchalet.com/contact.html Let 'im know I'm the guy with the mega-spreadsheet list of all of these I can find, this might be a new one to add to it. No worries if that's too much trouble, but indebted to you if you can snag the owner before this one gets away from him.
 
kennyw said:
The guy isn't selling the Chalet, but he has an orphan.

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Thanks for catching that! Same rig as two posts up at #444 but with a different seller name, so this must be the new owner who doesn't want the bumpers that came with it. I still don't have any way to Message in FB until I get a newer used computer where I can upgrade the browser - so if anyone wants to Message this new guy with my contact email address out of the blazerchalet website so I can find out what serial number it is, I'd be grateful for that.
 
kennyw said:
Another one. Orphaned camper anyway.
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Many thanks for this additional alert, but it is actually quite literally the same seller as the one you had in your #446 post, but the guy has now swapped out the chrome bumpers he was trying to sell, and also swapped the GMC grille for a Chevy one, put on different wheels, and has more than doubled his buying price, assuming the last FB Marketplace notification of this rig being sold for $6500 is accurate.
 
sweetk30 said:
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1.3K views | Phillip Flores on Reels

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Thanks for keeping an eye out, good to see an update on this one, it's the Chalet orphaned camper unit #1259, built in 11/76. I originally saw it in Oct 2020 as a Michigan FB Marketplace rescued "shed find" raccoon hotel where the seller was asking $3 grand for it without cleaning up one inch of the filth accumulated in it. It somehow bounced between one or maybe two sellers before the guy in this FB "Reels" video got it in Denver and took it home to Texas. It's a keeper for him, glad he is enjoying it.

#1259 Paw Paw MI.jpg
 
kennyw said:
Another one on Facebook.
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Many thanks for the alert, it's an update for me where the seller had only been previously just kicking around the idea of offering it for sale again. I've had it on my Google map of the ones for sale that I know of - in west Maryland - since 2017 by the same seller. When I get the chance in the next day or three, I'll have to update that map. Didn't spot the "...of 1849 ever produced..." bit until just now, unclear where he's guessing that from. The only halfway definitive total production figure I've ever heard of was the "1,780" declaration in paragraph 2 of this 1979 Treasure Search magazine article. The article writer/editor might have gotten that from an ex-Chinook worker or administrator, is my educated guess on that. GM only has the official 1,555 figure for all Blazer Chalets only, one of their reps told me they lost the GMC Casa Grande production figures. Chinook's own serial number stamps go as far as up to 1,799, but I'm thinking some lowly Chinook workers just bashed out more SN plates than completed camper units, and got lazy about assigning the proper sequence of plates to the units. It might also explain why some lower # units like my former #1747 had build dates of Jan '77 while higher # plates had Dec '76.
 
How many were made, and of those, how many have you accounted for? How many do you know of can be accounted for a scrapyard demise?
 
Chief Brody said:
.. many were made? .. how many accounted for? .. hoe many .. accounted for a scrapyard demise?
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A GMC factory rep years back emailed me to say GM knows the production tally for the Blazer Chalet 1,555 total units, but he said the company could not locate any figures for the GMC Jimmy Casa Grande. In a 1979 Treasure Search magazine writeup of their own rig, the [now deceased] editor said in his paragraph 2 that the complete total for both versions was 1,780, but never said where that figure came from. I'm guessing it may have been from a former Chinook official. I know of at least one rig with a #1799 serial number, but that might be from some Chinook low level worker who hand-stamped more SN plates than the company ended up using, and they were getting really inconsistent with the build dates being sequential relative to the SNs. Easy to rivet the most handy available plate on the back without first checking to see if a lower number has been used or not, I guess. t's an unsolved mystery, though.

Keeping track of the status of sold units and owners, along with confirming if the trucks for the orphaned camper units were scrapped (or vice versa) is like herding cats, so I can never pin down a good number to the ones in existence now. My spreadsheet is up to over 620 individual entries, although there is a number of 'em that are likely double entries (maybe even triple in a few spots) for the same individual rig or camper unit that I haven't yet determined are one & the same rig or camper unit. Guys sometimes change the appearance enough that I don't recognize 'em from older photos. I'm still "finding" an average of about 40 per year, either spotting 'em in ad listings on my own, or via help from all the eyes I have out there on the lookout for 'em. My spreadsheet is on a different old computer which I don't have open, but the last time I did a sort through it of the the "Scrapped" column where I have either a "B" in it or a "C" (body or camper), I remember it was about a dozen of each and maybe just 5 or so where the whole rig was wrecked beyond salvaging.
 
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