Showing posts with label menus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label menus. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Airline Collectibles Take Off



Question: I’ve traveled a lot for business in my career. Most of the time I’ve flown Business Class, but occasionally I got upgraded to First Class. Over the years, I’ve amassed a bunch of items from my many flights—baggage tags, menus, odd pieces of flatware, napkins, toiletry kits, and even little gifts from some overseas flights.  Are these things collectible? Are they worth anything?

Answer: Airline collectibles are hot. Although airline memorabilia collecting has been around for many years, many people don't realize just how long such items have been collected. Even the smallest of items can make for an interesting collection.

Collecting commercial airline items is still a new area, and, depending a what a collector chooses to collect, can still be quite affordable. The fact that many long-established airlines that were once household names have stopped flying adds to the lure of collecting airline memorabilia.

There are almost as many ways to collect airline items as there are airlines and airplanes. In fact, many people collect them by airline, a distinct collecting category. Some people have a love or hate relationship with a specific airline. It may be with the airline on which they flew first, or one they or a family member worked for. Some collectors build their collections around a specific aircraft or focus on a specific type of item such as airline china or insignias. There’s also a distinction between "vintage" airline items and newer ones, such as photographs or new models that can be found at shows. Beginning collectors should be aware that in addition to vintage postcards, newer ones have been produced in recent years and may be found at shows. Often these newer cards, which may look similar to vintage ones, are priced like them.

Some collectors choose to collect airline insignia or service pins by airline or crew position. Service pins feature small insignia, or items bearing the corporate insignia, awarded to crew members for a certain number of years in service. Collectors have found several different styles of insignia for an individual airline. Some companies used cloth hat badges before turning to metal hat insignia. Wings may be all metal or made with ceramic insets containing the corporate logo. The price for insignia varies depending on age, condition, style, crew position and airline. Depending on the piece, prices for more common insignia can be less than $50. Collectors can expect to pay up to several hundred dollars for older or rare pieces.

Today, many airlines have eliminated in-flight meals. Passengers are lucky to get a tiny bag of peanuts or pretzels. In the early days of air travel, passengers ate from fine china with metal flatware. Not only does the china reflect the elegance of an earlier time, but it’s a popular aviation collectible. Prices vary based on airline, age, piece and condition. When buying airline china, collectors use the same criteria as when purchasing other vintage china or ceramics, such as chips, cracks, and scratches.



Depending on where they’re purchased, prices for glasses can range from $5 to $25 as compared to cups and saucer sets that have a higher value of between $30 to $50. Plates can range from $50 to $250 depending on the age, decoration, condition and airline. Collectors expect to pay more for pieces from early airlines or ones that catered to "first-class service."

Airplanes themselves also attract collector interest. Some antique aircraft can be seen in museums. Others have been lovingly restored by collectors or consortiums and can be found tucked away in small local airports or seen flying high at air shows. For those who can't afford an entire plane, collectors can still land a variety of items related to their favorite aircraft such as instrument panel posters used for crew training or flight manuals.

Aircraft used by commercial airlines from around the world have been captured in photographs and prints, as well as on postcards and in paintings. Those who love the form and graceful lines of an aircraft aren’t restricted to pictures. Models, whether put together by future pilots or professionally made for a travel agent's desk, are collectible. A metal travel agents' model can cost upward of $2,000, even more if it’s of a popular airline or airplane.

Much of the paper ephemera directly associated with planes can be relatively inexpensive. Most safety cards are valued between $1 and $3. Safety cards are plastic laminated cards or folders that give information to passengers on the locations of emergency exits. Other types of paper collectibles are postcards and playing card decks. Postcards can be picked up for a dollar or two, and many playing card decks for between $5 and $10. For those who collect manuals, user's manuals and flight logs from the 1950s and older are preferred, although that may change as newer planes are removed from service. An added value to a manual is that many of them contain sketches and photographs, as well as the technical specifications, and were put in binders bearing the company logo.



Before the days of computers and the Internet, printed flight schedules were the travelers'—sometimes the flight crews'—travel guide. Prices vary for flight schedules depending on age, condition, airport and airline. For instance, those from the 1990s sell for $1-2, those from the1980s for $2-4, those from the 1970s for $4-6, and those from the 1940s and 1950s for $20-30. Schedules from the 1930s can cost between $60 and $100.

Almost anything with a corporate logo can be found in an airline collection including corporate literature, annual reports and magazine advertisements. There can also be crossover collecting where the advertisement showcases the aircraft. Illustrating the graciousness of airlines of the past are complimentary toiletry kits. Given to the traveler who forgot his toothbrush, kits can also contain razors, toothpaste and shampoo. Perhaps the most unusual airline collectible are air-sickness bags. Yes, there are collectors who desire them—preferably unused.

After eating Yankee pot roast and glazed carrots with sourdough rolls, passengers on a Pan Am flight could enjoy cherry pie and saltwater taffy. Beer was 50 cents and a split of champagne cost $1. And it didn’t cost a dime for you to be free of your luggage. Those were the days.

To learn more about collecting airline memorabilia, read "Up, Up and Away With Airline Collectibles" in my antiques ezine, The Antiques Almanac.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the early 20th century in the Fall 2018 Edition, "20th Century Ltd.," online now.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Eating Above the Clouds




QUESTION: My father used to fly a lot on business, and each time he flew somewhere, he’d keep a souvenir of that flight. Sometimes it was just a timetable or a ticket jacket, but at other times, he’d bring home a cup or a silver spoon or a menu with the logo of the airline on it. Are these items worth collecting?

ANSWER: People who traveled by plane, especially internationally, during the 1930s to the 1970s often kept a souvenir of their flights, including decks of playing cards, flight wings, timetables, postcards, flight bags, silverware and dishes. During that era, flights served full meals to all passengers, not just those in First Class. To fly anywhere was a special experience. People dressed up in their Sunday best and expected to dine on fine china using silver flatware on most flights.

There are lots of collectors of airline memorabilia out there. Propelled by personal memories and an eternal fascination with flying, these collectors seek the well-crafted and designed implements used on those mid-20th-century flights. And when some airlines like Eastern and Pan Am came upon hard times in the late 1980s, the market for airline dinner and silverware became speculative. Some, like Pan Am, were in operation from the early days of commercial aviation in 1927 to its shut down in 1991.

Airline collectibles consist of a wide variety of items, including timetables, crew wings, safety cards, barf bags, trays, liquor miniatures, plasticware, swizzle sticks, playing cards, safety cards, seat occupied cards, inflight magazines, overnight kits, flight bags, soap, hat badges, patches, buttons, service pins, hats, uniforms, ticket jackets, boarding passes, annual reports, posters,  brochures, ashtrays, pins, badges, toy and model planes, advertisements, games, watches and coloring books. Collectors particularly covet china, glassware, silverplate, flatware, salt and pepper shakers, and menus bearing the airline’s name or logo. Also, the older the item, the more valuable. Likewise, the more renowned or limited the airline's history, the more collectors are interested in them.

Some airlines first began serving meals on board aircraft about 1930. But the earliest marked china which they used dates from the mid 1930's. Generally, any china pieces from before WWII are rare and highly sought after by collectors. Prices likewise reflect the rarity and some pieces from that era are nearly $1,000. Not only are these pieces valuable because of their age, but also due to their scarcity. Today's airlines have fleets of several hundred planes each carrying a hundred or more passengers, but in the 1930's even the majors had only maybe a couple dozen planes each holding a few dozen passengers.

American and PanAm had some of the earliest examples of nicely marked china. PanAm flew its famous Flying Clippers across the Pacific, so the china used on them is quite rare. Most of the early china was very lightweight so as to not overload the planes, but there are several exceptions with both American and PanAm.

While the postwar era found most of the larger airlines, both domestic and foreign, having china, some of the smaller carriers didn’t start using it until the jet era. Both Delta and Continental, for example, used plastic dishes in the prop era.

The early jet era was undoubtedly the Golden Age of fine airline china. Each carrier competed with the others for speed and service. The service often included luxury dishes like steak or lobster.  Many of the small foreign carriers got their first china on their first jets.

Airline dinnerware is probably the most commonly found collectible at the airline memorabilia shows, and the variety is often astounding.

Much of the china seen at the shows comes from legitimate sources. When airlines change their logo or their china design, they sell off the older material or give it to their employees. Depending on the quality, quantity and condition of these items, they may have value perhaps in the hundreds or the thousands. Those airlines who also fly internationally use different china on those flights. China used by foreign airlines is often made by the best manufacturers—Wedgewood, Spode, Royal Doulton, and Noritake. Generally any pre-World War II china pieces are rare and highly sought after. Prices likewise reflect that rarity and some pieces sell for nearly $1,000.