Bits of Concorde nostalgia go up for auction in France
If you’re the one who is interested in buying a piece of history, then go about reading the post. We all know about the Concorde crash, right? Now the news is that the spare parts of this iconic plane and other memorabilia are up for auction at the Hotel des Ventes Saint-Aubin in Toulouse, France. The four day auction got off to a bumpy start Friday. The auction is obviously luring aeronautics enthusiasts. A total of 835 lots, including dozens of cockpit instruments, door panels, oxygen masks, dinnerware and a toilet seat valued at $850 are offered for sale. Among the more sought-after pieces are three Mach-monitoring speedometers, the orange and black analog dials, which display speeds as high as Mach 2 (expected to fetch the highest bids, as much as €20,000 each) and unused replacement parts or components that were actually installed on a working Concorde. A piece of nose landing year (in its original wooden case) weighing 1.2 tons is one of the largest items on offer. An organic-looking airflow-regulator valve made of iridescent titanium (estimated value-€300 to €500) is also a part of the auction. This is the third sale dedicated to Concorde ephemera since the supersonic jet stopped flying in May 2003. Concorde: Commercialized by Air France and British Airways, Concorde was a supersonic jet (a technological marvel) that made its first flight in 1969 but was formally retired in 2003 as ticket sales plummeted after a crash near Paris in 2000 that killed 113 people. The maximum cruising speed of this supersonic jet was 2,170 kilometers per hour and it was capable of flying from London to New York in less than three and one-half hours. The auction is anticipated to reap about $337,000. The items do not have the reserve price meaning thereby that they will be sold to the person who bids the highest no matter what the catalog price is. Even if you can’t attend the auction personally, you can send bid orders online. Image Credit Source: USA Today