The Wright stuff can take flight in collectable value

By Linda Rosenkrantz
Copley News Service

Collectors interested in aviation have a choice of flight paths:

They can focus on the flying machines themselves — not only the various kinds of planes, but balloons, blimps, zeppelins, dirigibles or gliders.

They can concentrate on the insignia and equipment of military aircraft from World War I or World War II, not to mention model and miniature planes. Then there is the memorabilia associated with commercial airlines of the past — Pan Am, TWA, Mohawk, Ozark, Western, Eastern, BOAC, Northeast, National et al. — including their china and crystal (those were the days), timetables, advertising, playing cards, and wings.

An alternate route is to zoom in on one of the great aviation heroes: Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart or — to get to the source of the subject — the Wright Brothers, especially fitting in this, the centennial year of their most historic flight.

The outlines of their story are well known: Orville and Wilbur Wright, two of the sons of Bishop Milton Wright, lived in Dayton, Ohio, and were involved in various enterprises, including a printing firm and a bicycle shop. They developed an early interest in the possibility of human flight and spent many years experimenting with flying machines, returning year after year to Kitty Hawk, N.C., to test their machines.

Finally, in December of 1903, their latest model — complete with a motorized propeller, weighing 600 pounds and taking three weeks to assemble — succeeded. With Orville at the helm, the machine flew 120 feet in 12 seconds, the historic first, heavier-than-air, manned, powered flight.

Not surprisingly, items directly related to the pair are avidly sought by both private and institutional collectors.

In 1938, the Wright family home and bicycle shop were transported to Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village Museum in Dearborn, Mich., where a mother lode of memorabilia is displayed. Not long ago, a program for the celebration of the opening of this site, signed by Orville, sold for $1,400.

Items relating to Wilbur are even more rare than those of his brother, because he had a much shorter lifespan. Even ancillary characters in the story are of collector interest. A check written by one of the other two Wright brothers, Lorin, was recently valued at more than $350.

Physical relics are also sought: eBay recently listed a piece of fabric from the “Vin Fizz,” the Wright Brothers-designed first plane to fly across the United States, with a starting bid of $1,500.

For the more modest collector, there is a wealth of vintage material, such as postcards, posters, stereopticon images, toys, sheet music, commemorative Tobey mugs, coins and stamps.

The centenary event has prompted the release of several books concerning the history of flight.

One of the less conventional is “Like Sex with Gods: An Unorthodox History of Flying” by Bayla Singer (Texas A&M University Press).

The book deals with flight myths and experiments leading up to the Wrights, including balloons, gliders and kites.

“On Great White Wings: The Wright Brothers and the Race for Flight” by Fred E. C. Cullick and Spencer Dunmore (A Madison Press Book/Hyperion) is a handsome book containing more than 200 illustrations.

It recounts, in precise detail, the building of “The Flyer,” the Wright Brothers’ original plane, the historic flight itself, and the impact it had on civilization.

A third, “The Wright Brothers Legacy: Orville and Wilbur Wright and Their Aeroplanes” by Walt Burton and Owen Findsen, is a typically superior Harry Abrams publication.

It features an impressive variety of visual material, including many by the Wright Brothers’ personal photographer, William Preston Mayfield.

Published for the first time, the images range from a casual 1899 photo taken around the Wright family dining table, to Wilbur lying on the 1901 glider, to construction photos, as well as diary entries and telegrams, cartoons and postcards. They are all embedded in a lively and informative text.