Every brand name and logo used in the United States must be registered with the patent and trademark office in Washington, D.C. Naturally, that includes all the automobile makes, both the current ones and (many, many more) from the past.
The original patent office applications have been converted to microfilm, but an ex-CIA employee and old car buff fished out of a dumpster old photostats and letter press copies of those documents. His collection of nearly 1000 is now being offered for sale.
The marques included range from the familiar (Pontiac, Duesenberg, DeSoto) to the obscure (Dixi, Dumond, Apperson). Values are estimated at $50 or so to several hundred dollars each, but the entire collection of 940 is being sold as a single unit, asking price: $175,000.
Interested buyers can check out www.cohascodpc.com