Whats your best antique shop find

Someone, (not me, I was too slow) got a bargain at a house clearance a few weeks ago. R1155 for £10.

At an antique book fair…

An copy of the Wright Brothers biography, signed by Orville himself.
There is a note written in pencil in the back from the original owner, a USAAF flight surgeon assigned to Wright Field in 1944 on how he got the book signed. I found it in Dayton.
Not real cheap, but about 1/5th the price a mojor book seller is asking for a similar item.

One thing I did get cheap at a used book store in Dayton, an autographed copy of Don Gentile’s autobiography.
A rare book in any condition, I’ve never seen another autographed.

1154 and 1155 in antique shop in Glastonbury..complete..£50 the pair, 1996 sold them at Shoreham? the very next day..for a tad more.

Correct reply from H.M.S. Vulture.

cheers dave

I found this in a Stockport junk shop in the mid 70s it cost me 50p and came with an American Artificial Horizon. The shop owner described it as a model aircraft propellor, I thought it was more likely off a fuel pump although I’ve never managed to confirm it. It was covered in a badly scratched dark varnish which I sanded off, and before anyone asks, no, there were/are no markings.
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back in the early eighties in Melbourne, for about ten dollars each..

A solid brass mounted Firefly…

and a heavy die-cast Victor, from the fifties ..any info on this one would be much appreciated..thanks.

From a store at Hemswell, a D.F.C. pilot’s Medals & full career in log books & photo’s in 1986-ish for £ 350 (not bought :mad::mad:). The same day from a store at Ludford, a 1940 dated Luftwaffe O.R. leather belt & alloy buckle for £22- def purchased:D:D & a german incendery for a fiver from a shop in Lavernham.

Fairey Battle.

Hi all here is a pic of a little gem i picked up a little while ago , was wondering what gems other people have found in antique/junk shops.

cheers dave

P.S. I know which aircraft it came from anyone else care to guess

A good few years ago in Weymouth i found a DH10 wing rib and a piece of fabric. I went back to the same shop some time later, but it had move around the corner, In it the shop it had a Short Singapore 111 propeller so i had to buy it. I told the owner ofthe shop I like propeller’s. So he contacted me to say he had a ww1 prop. I bought that it turned out to be of a Vickers FB14!

Dave

Several years ago, I found an Air Raid Spotters Guide in an antiques shop in Sandwich, Kent. Having parted with some cash just for the novelty of owning it, I took it back to RAF Cosford where I was stationed. I estimated that the book was a late 1944 edition based on references to aircraft types. There was a postscript in the back (hand written) which proclaimed the book to have been given as a present by a Flight Engineer of an unknown Halifax Squadron from Leconfield. The note highlighted the sad fact that the Flight Engineer had been killed on ops soon after he sent the book to his nephew. I thought no more of it.

A few months later, I was posted. To Leconfield… I found myself taking the book back to the place it had been bought in 1944, and serving in the RAF at the same station as the book’s first owner, Bill Ralph. I took it upon myself to research what happened to him. Luckily, Bill Norman’s excellent book on 640 Sqn held all of the answers. Bill Ralph was killed with all but one of his crew over Witten in 1945. A direct flak hit blew the bottom out of the nose of the aircraft. They were the last operational loss of 640 Sqn, and one of their most experienced crews.

I have tried to trace the surviving family members of P/O William Ralph, but to no avail.

EDIT: Moved back to Newcastle a few years ago to teach aircraft engineering. One of the first students through the door was William Ralph…….

An original canopy for a DFS Meise. Found the rest of the aircraft later, too, but that was too far gone to be of use.

Copy of the AI2(g) intelligence report on German Aircraft, New and Projected Types from late 1945, a snapshot of every German designer’s doodle on the back of an envelope in the final weeks of the war.
It was declassified in the 1950s and, to be honest, doesn’t contain much that isn’t now on sites like Luft46, but there’s an immediacy to it that I still find fascinating.

Canopy Find

Back in the early 80’s i was repping for a company and my calls that week were in the Canterbury area. Next door to my customer was an old book shop also selling antiquities. Browsing the section for old aviation books i found a few war time publications of interest and bought them. At the till the elderly owner asked if i had a special interest in war time aircraft to which i replied very much so. He said follow me and locked the shops door leading me through the back into a walled yard with a number of small brick buildings around the edge. We entered one, piled high with all sorts. There he said pointing to the corner, see that framework sticking out, pull it out please. Having clambered across old furniture getting covered in dust i grabbed the frame and pulled it free revealing a complete 109E cockpit cover less glazing but complete with pilots Armour plating and hood release catch. I was amazed at the weight. He had collected it from a house clearance outside Canterbury in the 70’s, thats all that he knew of its history. Asking price was £125-00. It was more then i could afford, it was bought by someone from the aviation archeology world that i knew at the time without so much as a thank you for the lead!

Previous thread here;

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=95186&highlight=antique+centre

A pale blue china tankard with the BOAC logo and crest from a shop in Minehead back in the 1980’s.

A hardback copy of the “Flying Flea” by Henri Mignet,publishers Sampson ,Low & Marston for £5 in a Hitchin antiques shop,back in the seventies.
In the sixties I had cycled as a teenager to Alan Troops airstrip at Wellingore,Lincolnshire . He had built and hopped a Flea in the thirties and the surviving fuselage was suspended in a barn. He had a copy of the book and I was on the lookout for my own copy.