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An important aspect of my research/writing is to hold myself accountable for what I claim. Not only should I give you what you need, but I must also provide all evidence and clarify inconsistences. It is to avoid becoming an authority led by intuition instead of reality. Without too much accountability, even the best of us can fall victim to overstating and favoring. Our job, as historical communicators, is to simplistically demonstrate the point as well as the evidence, such that anyone can pick up where I left off and know just as much as I did.

There are major problems with that however: the misunderstanding of what a source can realistically convey, the overreliance on one form of evidence or limited evidence, or even the refusal to acknowledge legitimate contradictions. Then there is a lack of confidence of sorts, in which one's answer must line up with the current consensus.

Essentially, I am not worried about exactly what one site or any particular postmortem source says. If it is properly researched and documented, then there's something to talk about, but not an unsupported claim. The authority of the source is irrelevant as all sources are equal in our eyes. It is a matter of what they say and how well supported the claim is, not who they are.

Without documentation as to where the claim originated we have no recourse to verify what sort of work they've done. Even Samsonite's own published history that you can pull from their site today, there is little attribution for most claims. And did journalists write it? A marketing team? Archivists? That doesn't mean it has zero value, only that it doesn't meet our standards.

What are we basing our information on?

If I can't show it, I don't know it.

We want anything contemporary. Pamphlets, brochures, magazine/newspaper ads, physical items, tags, labels, boxes—if it's something from that time, we can use it. But conversely, I can't claim anything that these sources don't support. We must respect their character.

It's important to examine a source for its limitations. A newspaper cannot be wholeheartedly trusted to accurately convey everything about an item every time, but they're also not completely useless. They're the most convenient way to see exactly when something reached stores, as while form numbers and dealer documents can help pin down a release window, newspapers can corroborate a more exact date. They're also useful in documenting rare promotions or one-off items, as we saw with LEGO Samsonite. Then there's also aspects like their reflection of culture, business reporting, clearancing, etc.

Magazine ads are some of the most common Samsonite materials online, but they too are limited. If they have no source (meaning no known distribution or date), their application in research is of limited value until that is identified. You can show adverts all day, but to be able to place them in a timeline or even map them out regionally will more likely answer the original question than a jumbled collection. So our archive must not only collect these original materials, but organize, identify, and be able to relay them where appropriate. And those dates must not be taken lightly—a guess to fill in a blank blurs with the rest.

While the above forms of evidence are fairly weak by themselves, when brought together and triangulated, claims are made much stronger. That's why we want such a diverse portfolio, our research will be better for it.

Another important factor is to be able to admit limitations of knowledge itself. It's okay to not know something, it's not okay to claim that you do when you don't. My favorite interactions come from corrections, as they so often lead to productive conversations. For example, I wasn't sure if the 002 Motor Pak released in Canada, so I conveyed such in my article. Someone reached out, pointing to an example they owned, and even helped me beyond that point.

If you identify knowledge gaps, people will be eager to fill them. If you haphazardly fill them in, you'll inevitably create confusion.

Why be so diligent?

It's just a luggage company... it's not likely to change our lives massively...

Which is a fair thing to point out. Knowing the exact year a particular suitcase released isn't a life or death situation, but diligence is a mechanism for reward. When you don't have the answer to a question in front of you, the only way to feel that reward and for it to last is to ultimately arrive at the correct answer.

But therein lies the issue: what exactly is the correct answer? What we ultimately publish may not end up being concordant with reality as more materials are found and archived, but you cannot fault someone who was working with what they had. Only someone who decided what they had was enough.