There will be an open auction in France in September to sell off parts of the famous Concord airplane. I'm sure 99.9% of the parts will be out of my price range, but I'd love to get my hands on an emblem or maybe something from the instrument panel. Of course, I won't be in France in September, so this post is very rapidly becoming irrelevant. Yes, in fact it was irrelevant after the first word was typed, but there you go.

Concorde parts to be auctioned in France

Source: Reuters News

06/06/2007

 

 

 

TOULOUSE, France, June 6 (Reuters) - Around 1,000 components from the Concorde airliner will be auctioned in September, European aircraft maker Airbus said on Wednesday.

 

"This sale will take place over three days with proceeds going to Aerotheque, a Toulouse aviation heritage association," said Airbus spokeswoman Caroline Brown. The auction, mainly of replacement parts stocked in warehouses of Airbus parent EADS, will take place in the old grains auction hall of the southwestern city for Toulouse.

 

Air France and British Airways operated Concordes between 1969 and 2003. Two previous auctions of Concorde parts attracted wide interest with one of the distinctive nose components selling for 470,000 euros ($636,100).

And, in an attempt to rescue this post, here's a creepy anecdote regarding the Concord, or rather, the Russian version:

Russia was developing its own version of the Concord the same time as France, known as "Concordia" (very original Russia). An early prototype crashed in a populated area and a part of the plane which had sheered off decapitated a child playing in his yard about a mile away from the crash. I wonder what that part would bring at auction?