The morals of collecting.

O.k I need to come clean on this , “into guns and knives” was a bit provocative, and whilst I have a few guns , the only knives I have are in the kitchen draw, and I don’t put camo paint on my face to watch reruns of “The World at War” !! Nice story about the Zulu knife; it would be nice to think it was true, but if it wasn’t, its still a Zulu knife, that they didn’t give away (like swapping shirts at the end of a game of footie!!) Incidently whilst talking of political correctness, and Zulus, an American company pruduces .577 cartridges, and like many cartridge manufacturers they put a picture on the box of the intended quarry, i.e pheasant, duck, pigeon, Zulu warrior!! (I kid you not)

Oh dear, are we fighting political correctness over the current fear and loathing over the so called obsession with knife ownership.
Up and till a few years ago I was a local Scout leader, the directive came out from head office that non of the kids were allowed knives, what, how can a Scout function without his Swiss Army penknife, with great difficulty, it proved, so we ignored the ruling, but then these weren’t nasty inner city kids and that should have been considered.
When I was a youth, I would never go anywhere without my WW2 Australian bush knife, it was so usefull for making dens and stuff, we never had any thoughts of it as a weapon.
Interestingly enough, last year my son lived with a Massai tribe for a month and they did do a swap, trainers, tee shirts and jeans for a warriors cloak, beads and sword, mind you, he was made an honourary warrior, Heathrow never battered an eyelid when he brought that through customs, beautiful piece of kit as well.

I understand what you say about owning aviation artifacts that caused a death rather than being just part of the whole sad story, I do have a Spitfire gunsite with a chunk out of the rubber protector, it’s made me think, but I guess it’s more down to age and missuse than anything else, all my other bits and pieces are probably just silent witnesses.

I blame Italian Harvard, he was the one who wanted the thread to move in a different direction !!!

nice try matey, nice try.. :rolleyes:

Alex

I blame Italian Harvard, he was the one who wanted the thread to move in a different direction !!! My thoughts on the original subject are, that it doesn’t matter what the history of the item is ,its why you want to own it ,is it because you have a macabre facination with death, or is it because you want that type of item, but the only one on offer is from a fatality crashsite; in my own project there is some crash recovered items, much of which I know very little about, which suits me fine; hypothetically if I had for example a gun sight that the pilot struck on impact, and may have contributed to his death, then , that would concern me, as everytime you sat in the seat you’d see it and be reminded of that. An item that was in the crash but in itself wasn’t responsible for any deaths, would be ok after all the “crash and smash” crews would have used anything they needed as long as it was servicable.

Well we have a wide range of comments for Vampire to sort through, from collecting aircraft parts through to what weapon to shoot a Zulu warrior with and whom to buy the ammunition from.
The best comment on this thread so far:
“Hitler must be turning in his Moscow filing cabinet at the thought of that”
Thanks Peter 😀

O.k I need to come clean on this , “into guns and knives” was a bit provocative, and whilst I have a few guns , the only knives I have are in the kitchen draw, and I don’t put camo paint on my face to watch reruns of “The World at War” !! Nice story about the Zulu knife; it would be nice to think it was true, but if it wasn’t, its still a Zulu knife, that they didn’t give away (like swapping shirts at the end of a game of footie!!) Incidently whilst talking of political correctness, and Zulus, an American company pruduces .577 cartridges, and like many cartridge manufacturers they put a picture on the box of the intended quarry, i.e pheasant, duck, pigeon, Zulu warrior!! (I kid you not)

Nice one Stuart, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that you used the Martini Henry on the Pikies, well, not publicly anyway.
You may be interested to know that my great, great, great Uncle George was at Rorkes Drift, and survived. A priceless family artifact that I have is a Zulu knife and sheath that he ‘liberated’ during the battle. The story goes that he was out on recce and while drinking from a stream outside the camp, he saw the reflection of a warrior in the water, sneaking up behind him with raised knife, he then turned round and shot him, possibly with your rifle.
My late uncle used to have his assegai and shield as well, but it all dissapeared.
The sheath has a large brown stain on the cloth which has always been suggested to have been the blood of the warrior, perhaps a DNA test wouldn’t go amiss.
I agree with you about the reluctance to show Nazi images, I think that the lack of swastika on the tail of the German Me 262 makes it unauthentic somehow, the small, modern German flag under the tail wings just looks stupid.
I know that the swastika is banned in Germany, but have any a/c from here flown over there, I’m thinking of the markings on Hans Dittes hybrid Bf 109 from a few years ago after it spent some time in this country.
I was interested to notice somewhere else on this forum, the pictures of the Yaks at the Berlin airshow, all marked up in Soviet fighting colours, Hitler must be turning in his Moscow filing cabinet at the thought of that.

My friend has a swastica arm band that his friend gave to him shortly before he died, the man that gave it to him was, Adolf Hitler, as he was a runner at the games held in Germany in the late thirties (37?) and everybody got one; bit like a crackerjack pencil!! ,but a sobering thought, that AH was only two touches away.

..talkin about feticism uh? :rolleyes:

lol nice one about the rabbit, never thought of it 😀

Alex

So its just me then thats into guns and knives…..; this thread has become confused. its trying to resolve two seperate issues, one being collection of items from known fatalities, and stuff with bad karma. As we are running out of rercognized curency, this is my 2 brass razoo’s worth; I’ve got a Martini Henry rifle, dated 1879 its exactly the right date for the “Zulu war” (Rourkes Drift et al ) am I bothered ? not a bit ,fact is it’s still used for its intended purpose ,i.e killing; in this case vermin (no Pete not the pikes!!) The Martini Henry was originally equipt with a 2ft long bayonet ,that was never used for opening cans of beans!! The weapon has a small part to play in history, as the modifications made to it ,i.e the change of calibre from .577 to .303 in about 1890, and its final sleeving to .22 , in the early part of last century show how the British army were reluctant to let a very accurate and reliable weapon go ,despite huge amounts of Lee Enfield’s available. There are hundreds of these rifles still in existance, but quite a number were never issue and are still in .577 calibre The SS stuff could be seen as distasteful, but I marvel at how quickly a country such as Germany could re brand itself , swastica’s ,jackboots, SS uniforms, Tiger tanks ,Stukas, BF109’s ,they are all inseperable; the fact that as aviation enthusiasts we enjoy seeing BF109’s, and long to see Stukas at air shows, doesn’t mean that they were any lesser tools of the Nazi war machine. Possibly the reason for the scarcity of the afore mentioned A/C, is that just after the war, most people found any representation of the third reich distastful and destroyed them, (my mum would still panic at the sound of V1, and has always hated them) but the way of dealing with evil such as the Nazi’s is not to destroy all images, but to look at them and remember, not just the evil deeds, but also what drove men to do them. Museums in this age of political correctness are reluctant to display Nazi images, so how does the ordinary man in the street see these things? My friend has a swastica arm band that his friend gave to him shortly before he died, the man that gave it to him was, Adolf Hitler, as he was a runner at the games held in Germany in the late thirties (37?) and everybody got one; bit like a crackerjack pencil!! ,but a sobering thought, that AH was only two touches away.

wait wait, let’s not go paranormal here…
I guess we’re talkin about good taste vs feticism here.. As per the helmet, just donate it to a museum and explain them the story behind it, it will live on and celebrate the memory of yr father as well.

Alex

I don’t believe that items can be haunted or anything like that. A rabbit foot was supposed to be lucky but the rabbit had four and it didn’t do it much good. I agree with the helmet idea. Pass it onto a museum and they will look after it and put it on display so that more hip and cool students can say “what the ******* is that”.

Ali

🙂

What’s the sense in collecting aviation bits that could be useful for restorations and are instead jelously kept by private owners?
Example: IIRC one of the most difficult gauges to find is the flap (or gear?) gauge for the Spitfire. Now u think it’s fair to have it in your home collection and havin a spit that could be completely original if it had it? I dunno if u follow my point here, but I find dull to have an airplane bit at home that could be useful for a restoration and it’s instead sittin in my case covered with dust..
All the “aviation things” that i have here have a meaning, both because are gifts or come from my plane.
A hand pump in a case can be a nice conversation topic, but seeing it back where it belongs to (spit cockpit for instance) would give it a different meaning and value :)Alex

Couldnt agree more, but there is nothing in my collection that could possibly be used again, if there was, then it would find a home where it could be used 🙂 .

wait wait, let’s not go paranormal here…
I guess we’re talkin about good taste vs feticism here.. As per the helmet, just donate it to a museum and explain them the story behind it, it will live on and celebrate the memory of yr father as well.

Alex

Alison – I think from memory it was somewhere in the region of eight pounds in weight. Suffice to add that the recovery crews in 1940 had a war to fight and didn’t have access to JCB’s .

Texantomcat
I know what you mean about SS stuff, I went up to see my mother a few weeks ago and she insisted that I took back a few of my late fathers momento’s including the SS helmet that he removed from the dead SS commander of forces in Brussells during a snatch raid to get hold of Gestapo files in the city in 1944.
I used to play with this thing when I was a kid, but having brought it home, it gives me the creeps. At the moment it’s in my sons room sitting on top of his telly, when he did a visit from Uni 2 weeks ago, he stared at it and said ‘what the f### is this thing doing here’, good comment from a hip and cool student.
My 12 year old stepson merely relates it to Fawlty Towers and thinks it’s cool, on the other hand, he’s only picked it up once, I think it has bad Kharma, but it is a family heirloom of historical significance, my old man had a tough battle to end up with this, I can’t get rid of it for his sake, anyway, I like to think of the previous owner struggling to comprehend programmes like ‘ Big Brother’ when the TV is on, and the helmet is sitting up there, would you have allowed this sort of thing, SS scum, probably would have loved it, it would have appealed to their sense of devious psychological human torture.
My other object of great fear and loathing is a WW1 Lee Enfield and bayonet. The bayonet, I suspect, has never been used, but the rifle is so battered it’s obviously seen a lot of action.
Some of my friends won’t touch it, I have a particular friend who is in to Psycic Healing and she is quite convinced that it has killed a lot of people and won’t go near it.
I do have a few aircraft bits that I have picked up from fatal crash sites, particularly from the Peak District and across the field from here.
Is the ownership of these artifacts the reason why I have had such terrible bad luck over the past few years, it makes me wonder, who knows, depends on your point of view, I was hoping my old man would sort them out when he went upstairs, he was that sort of bloke.

I am an advocate of marking the lives of those who died in aircraft crashes by both marking the site when practical and recovering parts which can assist in rebuilds as well as being on display with the details of the crew and mission.Sadly on site memorials are not always respected.

On two occasions I have passed on parts for rebuilds IE the altimeter in the Mosquito at Elvington.

Do not feel upset about the parts from the crash,instead use the parts to mark the memory of those who lost the lives.And also consider that some crashes involved no loss of life.

Couldn’t agree more but the MOD take a bit of a dim view on people who dig up crash sites where there are human remains. In the NE Aviation Museum they told me about a Hurricane dig that they were on and it was all done by the book with the RAF and licences issued and when they got to the cockpit half of the pilots jacket was there with half the pilots chest and his boots where still there with his feet still inside. How much of the body do they have to recover to say it’s the pilot and he’s in that grave there?

Ali

Memorials in parts

I am an advocate of marking the lives of those who died in aircraft crashes by both marking the site when practical and recovering parts which can assist in rebuilds as well as being on display with the details of the crew and mission.Sadly on site memorials are not always respected.

On two occasions I have passed on parts for rebuilds IE the altimeter in the Mosquito at Elvington.

Do not feel upset about the parts from the crash,instead use the parts to mark the memory of those who lost the lives.And also consider that some crashes involved no loss of life.

interesting topic, but if u dont mind i’d like to veer it to another direction..

What’s the sense in collecting aviation bits that could be useful for restorations and are instead jelously kept by private owners?
Example: IIRC one of the most difficult gauges to find is the flap (or gear?) gauge for the Spitfire. Now u think it’s fair to have it in your home collection and havin a spit that could be completely original if it had it? I dunno if u follow my point here, but I find dull to have an airplane bit at home that could be useful for a restoration and it’s instead sittin in my case covered with dust..
All the “aviation things” that i have here have a meaning, both because are gifts or come from my plane.
A hand pump in a case can be a nice conversation topic, but seeing it back where it belongs to (spit cockpit for instance) would give it a different meaning and value 🙂

just my 2 €urocents

Alex

Couldn’t agree more. I think that they should be either in a museum or on the original aircraft.

Ali

interesting topic, but if u dont mind i’d like to veer it to another direction..

What’s the sense in collecting aviation bits that could be useful for restorations and are instead jelously kept by private owners?
Example: IIRC one of the most difficult gauges to find is the flap (or gear?) gauge for the Spitfire. Now u think it’s fair to have it in your home collection and havin a spit that could be completely original if it had it? I dunno if u follow my point here, but I find dull to have an airplane bit at home that could be useful for a restoration and it’s instead sittin in my case covered with dust..
All the “aviation things” that i have here have a meaning, both because are gifts or come from my plane.
A hand pump in a case can be a nice conversation topic, but seeing it back where it belongs to (spit cockpit for instance) would give it a different meaning and value 🙂

just my 2 €urocents

Alex

This subject needs to be approached with some caution, but essentially there is no difference in collecting recent artifacts which may have been associated with death or injury than with, for example, a medieval sword or an iron age arrow head. Our sensitivities are more acute when considering parts from our recent history and because we can more accurately determine the events that might have been associated with an airframe part. Given that most collectors behave in a responsible and ethical manner, I do not think there is any great problem, generally speaking.

I’m sure this is a topic that has been talked about before so feel free to point me towards other threads, but:

How do you feel about collecting artifacts from aircraft where the crew have been known to have been killed?

I’ve been offered an artifact from an aircraft type i’m particularly interested in from the battle of britain, but have discovered the crew were killed in the incident.

I don’t feel comfortable with it but am interested in what others think.

I agree that some of the artifacts need to be preserved and I agree with the preservation policy that everyone seems to have but what about the Protection of Military Remains Act. I feel that recovering artifacts for a museum is a must but what about some over enthusiastic lawyer working for the MOD?

Ali

:confused:

We get this at the Museum quite a bit – my comment to visitors is, if we hadnt done the dig you would not know about the individuals whose lives were lost and we cannot explain their sacrifice to the next generation.

As for ‘collecting’ the same applies to all aircraft bits, whether crashed or not – ie that ME109 clock was installed in a weapon of war which could have shot down many men – that bullet head you find with your metal detector could have killed someone, the bayonet on the wall maybe ‘ran through’ a person.

You can take this to the nth degree – just because we are dealing with recent history – the collectors of muskets, roman swords, medieval halberds and so on presumably face the same question.

I imagine you mean here things with KNOWN provenance, tied to specific individuals.

The solution? Why are you collecting – to learn, to possess artefacts of an era in which you are interested to educate others about it? or to glorify war or certain cultures/political beliefs (for example I do not collect German stuff – especially SS, I find it distasteful). If the former, for my money it is a hobby about which one can be proud.

I dont, however have much time for those who excavate and SELL crashed remains. It seems wrong to profit from such things.

TT