DAGMAR

Crawford Automobile Co. (1922-1924)

M. P. Moller Motor Car Co. (1924-1926)

Hagerstown, Maryland

This is a Dagmar coat of arms radiator emblem (1922-1924)     mjs
Size: 63mm diameter     MM: Whitehead & Hoag

The Dagmar was introduced by Mathias P. Moller, who owned the Crawford Automobile Company, as a sporting companion car to the Crawford motor car. He named his new car after his daughter, Dagmar, who had been named after Queen Dagmar of Bohemia. 

The first Dagmar automobile appeared in 1922 and was the Dagmar 6-70, a 70hp six-cylinder sport victoria model. A wider range of body styles was available for 1923 and 1924. By early 1924 Moller had reorganized the company into M. P. Moller Motor Car Company and had dropped the name Crawford. All cars produced were now called Dagmar.

The first Dagmar cars were produced in brass trim all over and had a radiator emblem with the royal Danish coat of arms, which was discontinued in 1924 after the Danish embassy objected and replaced by a pipe organ logo. Moller already had a successful organ manufacturing company and he was known as the pipe-organ king. 

In 1924, the new Dagmar 6-80 was offered in a choice of brass or nickel plated finish and from late 1924, for the 1925 model year, the Dagmar 6-60 was only available with a nickel plated finish.

Dagmar cars were essentially hand built to order and were relatively expensive. Even so, the Dagmar business was not profitable and few were built by the time that Moller stopped production of the Dagmar in 1926. The main reason for stopping the Dagmar was a important contract in 1924 to build taxicabs. Moller went on to make a new fortune in the taxicab business, which included the Moller (see Moller), Paramount (see Paramount) and Astor (see Astor), among several other makes.

Total lifetime production of the Dagmar is reported by Kimes and Clark as 417 units. 

Emblems

The first Dagmar cars were finished in brass and the radiator emblem was a multicolored enamel emblem displaying the royal Danish coat of arms and had a polished metal finish, see the example shown above at the top of this post. This Dagmar radiator emblem is scarce.

Part way through 1924, the Dagmar began to use a nickel plated finish to the body work and the Dagmar radiator emblem was also finished in nickel, see example below. This Dagmar radiator emblem is rare.

This is a Dagmar coat of arms radiator emblem (1924)    mjs
Size: 63mm diameter     MM: Whitehead & Hoag

The Dagmar radiator emblem design was changed later in 1924 to show a pipe organ logo in place of the royal Danish coat of arms, see example below. This Dagmar radiator emblem is scarce.

This is a Dagmar pipe organ radiator emblem (1924-1926)     mjs
Size: 63mm diameter    MM: None

The level of rarity of Dagmar radiator emblems is interesting. In the 1990's, it was fairly easy to find the brass coat of arms Dagmar emblem and the nickel plated pipe organ Dagmar emblem. They were New Old Stock emblems and most likely a large batch of unused Dagmar emblems had been discovered around that time. These Dagmar emblems have since been placed in many individual emblem collections, so that today Dagmar emblems are hard to find. Nevertheless, large numbers of these emblems do still exist.

The Dagmar emblem shown below is a brass finished Dagmar sill plate and is rare. The Dagmar sill plate can also be found finished in nickel plate and is also rare.

This is a Dagmar sill plate (1922-1924)    sam
Size: 130mm wide

Some Dagmar cars displayed a brass or nickel plated Dagmar radiator script using the same style of the name "Dagmar" in the sill plate shown above.

The following red painted Dagmar emblem can also be found in brass and nickel plate. It has been reported as being a motometer emblem but is, in fact, a ring from a Dagmar hub cap, see examples below. These hub rings are rare.

This is a brass finished Dagmar hub disc (1922-1924)    mjs
Size: 114mm outside diameter

This is a nickel plated Dagmar hub cap showing the Dagmar ring (1924-1926)    dkc