Crown Photos

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  - Photo Index – Lookup
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Crown Photographs

The photographer Crown used for several decades to document their products and innovations was Dick Whittington. Somewhere between the 1950s and 1960s their longtime employee Warren Bowen started his own photo studio in Los Angeles. He took the Crown account with him. When Warren retired in the 1980s, he gave Louk Markham his Crown photos and negatives archives. Louk then donated these to The Pacific Bus Museum in February 2024.

As you can imagine, we are still trying to figure out how to sort out what is in this collection. We do know that they have a unique filing/sorting system that is not by chassis number, as are the rest of the Crown Corporate records. So it will certainly take some time/effort for us to figure out how to cross-reference these.

Crown Photo Archives – Lookup

This page provides a searchable lookup of our Crown Photos.

Recent Photo Additions

Beard Motors Commercial Job 1837
Beard Motors Commercial Job 1837 10/1930 Posted: January 14, 2025 at 2:06 pm
Reedley Joint Union High School District No. 2
1917 Reedley Joint Union High School District No. 2 (4×5 negative copy of print 1977c) Posted: January 14, 2025 at 2:02 pm
Compton Union High School
1927 Compton Union High School (4×5 negative copy of print 1977c) Posted: January 14, 2025 at 2:00 pm
Simi Valley Union Grammar School
1927 Simi Valley Union Grammar School (4×5 negative copy of print 1977c) Posted: January 14, 2025 at 1:58 pm
Covina Union High School Fleet
Covina Union High School Fleet 1950 Posted: January 13, 2025 at 1:22 pm
Morenici High School Arizona
Morenici High School Arizona 1/20/1976 (LM C10-P51) Posted: January 13, 2025 at 12:35 pm

Fleet in front of the NBC Studios building in L.A. at Sunset and Vine. “Crown ‘reconditioned’ 12 Ford Transits for Asbury’s takeover of Burbank City Lines in 1949 The operator was Asbury Rapid Transit owned by the Asbury family. By 1950 the owner was A.J. Eyraud, Jr.” – Eli Bail “From Railway to Freeway” page 159 Posted: January 13, 2025 at 12:24 pm
Mounting Fire Engine’s Engine
What do you call the engine inside a fire engine? A fire engine engine? Posted: January 6, 2025 at 1:54 pm
Crown Elephant Marketing Publicity Photo
Bowen – 100-416-xx Crown Elephant Marketing Publicity Photo 8/26/1975 (LM C7) Posted: January 6, 2025 at 1:31 pm
Los Angeles City School Fleet 1940s
Posted: January 1, 2025 at 8:35 am
Ikarus Electric Trolleybus 6/3/1980
We know that Crown Coach partnered with Ikarus to import and Americanize their long articulated bus. But we recently came across a 6/3/1980 photo negative in the Crown Photo Archives of an Ikarus Electric Trolleybus. There was some confusion when we first found these photos, because they sure didn’t seem like photos taken in Los Angeles by Warren Bowen. We have since found the negatives and confirmed that these are not original Bowen photos, but instead Bowen photos-of-photos copies. This makes a lot more sense because the coaches don’t have the Crown logo and the cobblestone and building architecture resembles Hungary more than Los Angeles. Posted: January 1, 2025 at 8:22 am
WFAA-TV 8 Dallas Morning News – Ampex Video Truck
This is a great collection of negatives, for which there were not prints. These are low-resolution scans from the 4×5 negatives. WFAA-TV Channel 8 Television Service of the Dallas Morning News. Videotape Cruiser. Posted: January 1, 2025 at 7:31 am
1936 Paramount Pictures
1936 Crown built for Paramount Pictures Posted: December 28, 2024 at 12:55 pm
North Park School District Colorado
We’re sure the North Park School District Colorado Wildcats enjoyed this bus, complete with 2×2 reclining seats. Posted: December 28, 2024 at 9:55 am
Camp Pendleton Marines
Postal Special Services Camp Joseph H. Pendelton U.S.M.C. Oceanside, California Posted: December 28, 2024 at 9:09 am
El Segundo USD Ford 09-B
This is a 1940 Ford Transit built as a School Bus by Crown Posted: December 27, 2024 at 3:39 pm
40′ high-level Crown Supercoach 3/4 right front
Bowen – 100-301-1 40′ high-level Crown Supercoach 3/4 right front 9/27/1966 (Goodall’s?) Posted: December 27, 2024 at 2:52 pm
Norwalk Accessible 1960 (LM C8-P56)
1960 Wheelchair accessible bus Posted: December 26, 2024 at 4:18 pm
Polaroids of 1954 Crown at 5-7-1988 Rodeo
Unknown – Polaroids of 1954 Crown at 5-7-1988 Rodeo Posted: December 17, 2024 at 2:24 pm
Oakland Neighborhood Church Fleet
Bowen – Oakland Neighborhood Church Fleet Posted: December 17, 2024 at 2:12 pm

Photograph Series-ID Numbering System

Louk Markham described the photograph numbering system this way.

Let’s look at these two photos as samples:

Warren Bowen 511-28-3

Dick Whittington 06.120.1

First, both Warren Bowen and Dick Whittington used a similar ###-##-## format.

99% of Bowen’s Crown photos are in the 100-##-## format (100 is likely Bowen’s customer number for Crown)
- So, this Bowen photos numbered 511-##-## is interesting and unique

The second set of digits in the ###-##-## format was the roll or job number. The final digits were the photo-number on the roll.

So the format is Job#-Roll#-Photo#
So the 511-28-3 above is roll #28 photo #3

However, Dick Whittington generally wrote his numbers with dots and may have reversed the Job/Roll #’s: Roll#.Job#.Photo#

So, it is likely the Whittington photo above, numbered 06.120.1 is the 6th roll and the first photo

Photo Index – Lookup
Photo Index – Entry (Admin only)

Photographer: Warren Bowen, Dick Whittington, J. Soto, Unkown, Other Series ID: Series Label/Customer: Coach Type: Coach/Charter, Fire Truck, Highway Post Office (HPO), Medical/Ambulance, Mobile Library/Book Mobile, Police/Prison, School Bus, Transit, TV/Film Truck, Other	Photo ID: ###-###-## or ###.###.## Photo Date: Archive Container: