There is a lot of dubious Dr.1 material out there, nearly as much as generic AirMin stuff sold on e-Bay as ‘Spitfire’. However, I posted in the Aerodrome thread, off the top of my head items I’m aware of in major public collections, most of which is authenticated to a reasonable degree (these collections have every reason not to overstate the provenance they can prove for these items, rather than the other way around).
There is no argument that the Dr.1 was heavily ‘souvenired’ primarily by Diggers of the Australian Army, nor that much of that material ended up in Australia (and elsewhere) after the war. The problem is, in most cases that there’s no reliable evidence (provenance) to back up the claim that the items come from a particular aircraft, or is indeed genuine.
From my memory, and please feel free to add to, they are;
IWM (Engine. & more?)
AWM (control stick & yoke, cockpit parts, MvR boot. Other items?)
RAAF museum (Small pieces inc fabric patches, metal parts, gun flash suppressor, others?)
Omaka Heritage Centre, NZ, a good deal of items including a complete (wing?) cross.
Royal Canadian Military Institute (seat – only?)
As far as I know, the two last complete Dr.1 triplanes were destroyed by allied bombing. Other Fokkers (E.I, D.VIII) are rare, with one and one fuse. only surviving alone, respectively, so I’m wondering how many Dr.1 bits of any aircraft survives; i.e. even if this proves to be Dr.1 but without a tie to MvR’s machine, it’s still rare and of historical & research import.
What would be interesting is if any collection had a tank with provenance to that Dr.1, thus eliminating the possibility. Finding a document tying this object to that aircraft would be ‘very nice’ and massively unlikely though.
Regards,
Hi James
I am pretty sure that over 10 years ago I visited the Blackburn RSL and they had a small piece of the triplane as well.
Paul
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