paul fraser collectibles

Spirit of St. Louis Spare Parts Up For Sale

What price old airline parts? When those pieces are part of the historic Spirit of St. Louis, the long-range aircraft flown by Charles Lindbergh during his historic solo flight across the Atlantic, they are worth quite a lot. Paul Fraser Collectibles is selling off pieces owned by Lindbergh's trusted engineer, Kenneth Lane. Before Lindbergh took his plane on a tour around the U.S. he gave Lane a 'survival kit' of parts of the plane. Lane gave most of the kit to the Smithsonian where the Sprit of St. Louis is exhibited but he had extracted parts used on the solo flight which he thought were becoming unreliable or would not last the whole tour.

These historic parts include two spark plugs which Lane believed had less than a year's worth left in them, a rocker arm from the Wright J5-C "Whirlwind" engine (serial no. 7331), and three shock absorber bungee cords stretched by the heavy transatlantic fuel load all housed in a specially made wood case. Paul Fraser Collectibles is selling this kit for £125,000.

Tags: charles lindbergh, lindbergh, paul fraser collectibles, spirit of st louis

JK Rowling, Astrologer?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Books

Paul Fraser Collectibles has a rather unique piece of writing from Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Years before she was a best-selling author, Rowling was a single mother living in Edinburgh. At the time she befriended the parents of a newborn baby Jack David Buchanan and created a beautiful hand-drawn horoscope for the boy. The 12 pages horoscope contains drawings. The cover shows fish and a lion on the cover (the child was born on cusp of Pisces). Inside Rowling wrote her astrological predictions for young Jack including the fact that he will "perhaps be accident-prone, (like all Pisces) could be prone to alcoholism, and (perhaps like us all) may well fall in love with someone totally incompatible." The work is priced at £25,000.

Tags: jk rowling, paul fraser collectibles