John Penton's priceless Campbells Soup box !

[Paul Danik]

At about the time we were getting the Penton Owners Group formed, I was visiting with John Penton at his home when he handed me a cardboard box that he had turned into a hanging file holder. Crazy as it may sound, John had taken a cardboard Campbell's soup box that was about 24 " X 18" and about 10 " deep and filled it with hanging files, beneath the hanging files was quite an assortment of items including an envelope of film negatives.
" Here, see if you find anything interesting in here", John stated as he handed me the box.

I could write a book about all of the items that John had found interesting enough to save over the years, but for now let's concentrate on the film negatives. I took the negatives to the local camera shop and had them make prints from them and what a priceless bunch of photos they were. The negatives were from the photo shoot of the proto model Penton that was done in the Penton Honda building with Jerry West taking the photos, possibly in late 1967. Anyhow, the two photos I have posted show just how Jerry and the gang had set up the photo shoot. Years later at a POG event we visited the old Penton Honda building and checked out that exact photo shoot location in the shop as that sink was still in existence.

Who would have ever thought that almost 6 decades later there would be so much interest in the Penton Sportcycles. Speaking of interest in the Penton Sportcycles, the Penton Owners Group will be having its July meeting on Thursday July 2nd in the Jackpiner room of the KTM office building, located just west of beautiful downtown Amherst, Ohio, beginning at 7 pm.

John Penton's Campbell's Soup box was filled with an incredible array of items that he knew were of historic value. What I thought would take a day or so to go through ended up taking the better part of a snowy winter week. As I sat by the wood burner reading and looking over most every item that John Penton had found interesting enough to save over the years, I was sure glad that he had done so.

THANKS JOHN, and yes, I did find EVERYTHING quite interesting, and still do !