Out of interest, what do people do with these artefacts? I collect books, which sit on the shelf in my study. They are not unique, so are of little interest to anyone else. But an artefact like the escape hatch? I suspect it sits in the loft/garage most of the time. Why not donate it to a museum – it will have your name on it, so everyone who sees it will be gratefull to you. This is different to collecting pieces to rebuild say a cockpit section etc. You will do something with that – often display it, and maybe then donate it!

DS

Doc,

In theory it would be a sensible thing to do to donate items such as these to museums. In reality there are few museums who do something useful with them and will store them never to be seen on display or lose them altogether (yes it happens all too often). In Holland some of the major museums have lost or sold items that had been donated. I think this happens all over the world.

Apart from sitting on someones shelf at home will only ensure that the item will not decay any further but nothing will be done to it. Having it donated to a project such as the Stirling Project would be the best thing to do, but it seems like the seller is only interested in making money.

Just to give an example. I collect all sorts of things related to Handley Page and the Halifax in particular. These items will not sit on my shelf (long) gathering dust but used in a cockpit reconstruction using original parts that come from the strangest of sources but recoveries and e-bay are some of them. Certain items are not to be found during a recovery because of the nature of the items such as the throttle box in my case. E-bay is a means of getting sought after parts and the prices are usually hight but if you have a goal there is no choice. But nobody would be so nice to contact me and say: hey, weren’t you looking for a throttle box in mint condition? It would be put on e-bay and then the vendor would wait until the battle is over and the money is collected. But that’s life.

Cheers

Cees