9 famous collectible aeroplanes you should have bid on at auction
Each of these iconic aircraft went on the auction block, and some sold for what we now know is a bargain price.
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Whether it’s a car, home, jewellery, or piece of art, if an item going to auction has some kind of celebrity cachet, chances are good that it will garner additional attention—and perhaps draw higher bids. Consider, for example, the 1962 Lockheed JetStar that Elvis Presley owned briefly in the mid-1970s. After the King sold the aircraft in 1977, it sat on a runway in New Mexico for more than 35 years, collecting dust and rust. Nevertheless, when the plane went to auction in 2017, it sold for US$430,000.
Even though the price was well below the US$2 million presale estimate, it was still a lot to pay for an aircraft that couldn’t fly and needed a complete interior and exterior restoration. And, in fact, it was too much to pay. It seems the new owner experienced buyer’s remorse, because the JetStar went back on the block this past summer. There’s no word from the auction company, IronPlanet, on whether the seller made back his money.
The JetStar is not the only Elvis plane to go to auction, and it’s not the only one with a celebrity or pop-culture connection that helped it fetch plenty of notice, though not necessarily the owner’s asking price. The following aircraft became famous because of a role they played in a movie, on TV, or in real life, and at one time or another, each was available to the highest bidder.
Elvis Presley’s Lisa Marie plane at Graceland
Photo: DreamArt123/Shutterstock
Lisa Marie and Hound Dog II
– On the block in 2015
– Sold together for a reported US$15 million
Elvis fans breathed a sigh of relief in 2015 following the sale of his two jets—Hound Dog II and the Convair 880 that Presley named Lisa Marie after his daughter—because the new owner reached a “permanent” agreement to keep the aircraft at Graceland in Memphis, where they have been loved tender since 1984.
Elvis purchased the plane that would eventually bear the name Lisa Marie—a Convair 880 narrow-body airliner—from Delta Airlines in 1975 for US$250,000. He spent another US$350,000 refurbishing it. The custom interior includes a queen-sized bed, a bathroom with gold faucets and a gold washbasin, a videotape system linked to four televisions, a stereo system with 50 speakers, and a conference room. The tail section of the plane is emblazoned with the initials TCB—taking care of business. The plane last carried passengers in 1977, when it flew Priscilla Presley and George Hamilton, a good friend of Elvis, from California to his funeral at Graceland.
Like the plane in New Mexico that once belonged to Elvis, Hound Dog II is a Lockheed JetStar. Elvis bought it for about US$900,000 in 1975 while waiting for the refurbishment of Lisa Marie to be completed.
WWII British Spitfire
Photo: John M. Dibbs
World War II British Spitfire
– On the block in 2014
– Sold for an undisclosed price
The unrestored Mark IX Spitfire was one of eight World War II fighter planes that appeared in the 1969 film Battle of Britain. They belonged to Wilson Connell “Connie” Edwards, a pilot who later made his fortune in the oil, ranching, and stone businesses. Not a man afraid of old-fashioned bartering, he coordinated the movie’s flying stunts and took the aeroplanes as payment. Before selling them, Edwards kept the aircraft in a hangar on his private airfield in Texas for more than 40 years. The Spitfire in question, which an unidentified British collector acquired for an undisclosed price, is particularly notable because it flew in the actual Battle of Britain.
Edwards had intended to give the aircraft to his son, but the younger man was killed in a traffic accident. The total asking price for the eight aircraft was a firm US$15 million, and according to Platinum Fighters, the company that handled the sale, Edwards received more than that sum.
In 2015, one year after that sale, a restored World War II Spitfire that had been shot down over northern France in 1940 and discovered in the sands of Calais 40 years later sold at a Christie’s auction in London for US$4.8 million—the most ever for an aircraft at auction. The presale estimate was only US$3 million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and the wildlife charity Panthera.
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade biplane
Photo: Prop Store
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Biplane
– On the block in 2017
– Unsold
This third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise was apparently more popular with moviegoers than the film’s Stampe et Vertongen SV.4 biplane was with collectors. The 1989 film became the first to sell US$10 million worth of tickets in a single day; the auction company that conducted the sale of the plane last year, Prop Store Entertainment Memorabilia, expected to draw bids of US$27,000 to US$40,000, but the aircraft went unsold, indicating that the bottom end of the estimate range wasn’t reached.
The biplane was offered while sporting Royal Air Force markings rather than the Luftwaffe livery it displayed in the Last Crusade. This is because it was wearing makeup from its last film role (in what was also perhaps Brendan Fraser’s last good film), 1999’s The Mummy. Perhaps the mummy’s curse afflicted the biplane as well as Fraser’s film prospects.
In the Last Crusade sequence featuring the biplane, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are aboard, trying to elude their Luftwaffe pursuers. Connery, as Indiana’s father, Henry Jones Sr., inadvertently shoots bullets from a machine gun through the aeroplane’s tail section and then tells Indiana, “Son, I’m sorry. They got us.” The prop for the bullet-ridden tail section was offered as a separate lot.
Out of Africa biplane
Photo: Courtesy of Bonhams
Out of Africa Biplane
– On the block 2013
– Sold for 201,250 euro (about US$280,000 at the time)
The airworthy 1929 De Havilland Gipsy Moth biplane flown by Robert Redford’s character in the seven-time Oscar winner from 1985 was expected to sell for only about 103,000 euro. Instead, the price rose to nearly double that mark before the hammer dropped at the 2013 Bonhams auction. The price, the equivalent of about US$280,000 at the time, was the most ever paid for a Gipsy Moth. The winning bid came from a buyer in Kenya, where the movie was set.
The plane is featured in a four-minute-long romantic scene in which Redford is the pilot and his passenger is Meryl Streep, who, of course, was nominated for a best-actress Oscar. They fly over the Kenyan savannah, holding hands. Alas, later in the film, Redford’s character is killed when (spoiler alert) he crashes the plane en route to be with Streep’s character.
The plane, painted bright yellow, was in superb condition when it was sold and came with a permit to fly.
Fantasy Island plane
Photo: Branson Auction
Fantasy Island Plane
– On the block in 2016
– Sold for US$275,000
The 1967 Grumman Widgeon, whose arrival at the start of each episode of Fantasy Island was heralded by Tattoo shouting, “De Plane! De Plane!” fell on hard times after (spoiler alert) the show concluded its eight-year run in 1984. According to various reports, the aircraft passed through the hands of a series of owners after Fantasy Island went off the air. It crashed in a swamp on at least one occasion and was involved in a gear-collapse accident. At least twice it was confiscated by drug-enforcement authorities (it was, after all, the ’80s) and sold at auction. However, it was refurbished in the late 1990s and presented on the air-show circuit throughout the Midwest.
The aircraft is not an authentic Grumman Widgeon. It’s a Société Construction Aéro-Navale Type 30, a license-built copy of a Grumman Widgeon. It was built in Rochelle, France, in 1951, eventually disassembled, and stored until 1967, when it was imported to the United States and reassembled with new engines.
Nearly all of the footage of the plane used throughout the series was shot in a single day. When the guests arrived at the island at the start of each episode, they climbed out of a plywood mock-up of the back of the plane.
Roger Moore in Octopussy
Photo: Danjaq/EON/UA/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Octopussy Microjet
– On the block in 2014
– Sold for US$275,000
Before the Bede BD-5J starred in the opening sequence of the 1983 James Bond movie Octopussy, in which Agent 007 uses it to evade the bad guys and a heat-seeking missile, the aircraft had already made a claim to fame. At only 163kg, it was listed by Guinness World Records as the world’s lightest single-engine jet.
A propeller version of the aircraft was developed in the late 1960s by the Bede Aircraft Corporation and sold in the early 1970s as a kit plane before the company went bankrupt in the mid-1970s. The jet-powered version, the BD-5J, which was also known as the Acrostar, could achieve 480km/h. Two examples of the aircraft were flown in air shows throughout the 1980s by Coors Light—which called the planes, naturally, Silver Bullets—and another appeared in Bud Light commercials. The aircraft have been involved in several fatal crashes, including one in 2013 involving a BD-5J that was part of Red Bull’s Flying Bulls racing team.
In addition to its role in Octopussy, the BD-5J made a cameo in the later Bond film Die Another Day, in which it is seen hanging on the wall of Q’s workshop.
“The Miracle on the Hudson”
Photo: Justin Lane/EPA/REX/Shutterstock
Miracle on the Hudson Airbus A320
– On the block in 2010
– Sold for an undisclosed price
The Airbus A320 that Tom Hanks (or, should we say, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger) successfully ditched into the Hudson River in 2009 went to auction in 2010 with the expectation that it would be sold for scrap metal. A similarly scrapped Airbus 310 had recently sold for US$2.6 million and reportedly earned its new owners US$4 million when they broke it up and sold it for parts.
The engines on U.S. Airways flight 1549 lost power following a bird strike, and by landing the plane on the river, Sully managed to save all 155 passengers and the crew. The airliner eventually was hoisted out of the river and onto a barge. Its wings and tail were cut off so that the fuselage could be hauled on a flatbed truck to a warehouse in New Jersey, where National Transportation Safety Board inspectors spent nearly two years trying to figure out what went wrong and whether Sully did the right thing by landing in the Hudson.
At the auction, instead of a salvage company placing the winning bid, the plane was acquired by the Carolinas Aviation Museum for what is reported to have been a bargain price. The museum had the plane transported to its home in Charlotte, North Carolina, the destination of Flight 1549 on the day of its splash landing. It reattached the wings and tail, restored the interior, and now has the aircraft on permanent display. According to the museum, the number of daily visitors more than doubled in the autumn of 2016, after Sully, the film re-creating the splash landing, was released.
President Dwight Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower exit “Air Force One” in 1953
Photo: US Air Force
The First Air Force One
– On the block in 1970
– Sold for US$35,000 with four other Lockhead VC-121 aircraft
The Lockheed VC-121 that was known as Columbine II, Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential plane and the first to be designated Air Force One, has now been completely restored, but at one time it was on the verge of becoming a crop duster or scrap metal.
The Air Force One call sign was established in 1953 following an incident in which an Eastern Airlines commercial airliner accidentally entered the same air space as Columbine II. The airliner was flight 8610, and the president’s plane was flying under the call sign Air Force 8610.
The aircraft, serial number 48-610, was retired in 1968 and sent to storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Two years later, it was part of a US$35,000 five-aircraft auction sale to Mel Christler, a Wyoming businessman who bought the VC-121A planes from the Air Force with the intention of converting them into crop dusters. He didn’t know that one of those planes was the original Air Force One.
Christler converted the other four VC-121 aircraft, but not Columbine II. Its landing gear was faulty because it had been replaced with parts from a different plane model. The owner therefore decided to instead use the plane to supply the other four with spare parts. In 1980, he was on the verge of cutting up the aircraft and selling it as scrap when the Smithsonian Institution—like the deus ex machina in a schlocky movie—contacted him in time and informed him of serial number 48-610’s true identity.
The plane’s current owner acquired it in 2015 and began a full restoration in 2016.
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8 Fascinating Facts You Didn’t Know About Aston Martin
The British sports car company is most famous as the vehicle of choice for James Bond, but Aston Martin has an interesting history beyond 007.
Aston Martin will forever be associated with James Bond, ever since everyone’s favourite spy took delivery of his signature silver DB5 in the 1964 film Goldfinger. But there’s a lot more to the history of this famed British sports car brand beyond its association with the fictional British Secret Service agent.
Let’s dive into the long and colourful history of Aston Martin.
The origin of the Aston Martin name
The company that would become Aston Martin started out as a car dealership. In 1912, Englishmen Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin partnered to sell cars, but soon after they decided to build their own models. Their first prototype debuted in 1915, named in honour of Martin, a racing driver, and his favourite racing venue, Aston Hills. Thus, the name Aston Martin was born.
A speed-demon co-founder banned from driving
Aston Martin co-founder Lionel Martin wasn’t just a keen racing driver—he was an all-out speed demon. As a student, Martin won numerous gruelling bicycle racing records, including riding nearly the full width of England in one 22-hour stretch. He competed in motorcycle and sidecar races and automotive hillclimb competitions. It seems he also brought that need for speed to the public roadways: In 1909, having neglected to pay a previous speeding fine, Martin was caught driving 41.5 km/ph in London and was banned from driving for two years—during which he set yet another cross-country bicycle record.
A tractor company takes over
The years after World War I were tumultuous for Aston Martin, with financial difficulties and numerous takeovers. In 1947, Aston Martin went up for sale and was purchased by David Brown Limited, a company that specialised in farm tractors and industrial gears. Sir David Brown, grandson of the company’s founder, was a lifelong car enthusiast and racer, having built his own competition cars while working as an engineer at the family company. The first car built by Aston Martin after this takeover was called the DB1, named after the tractor company (and the man) that had saved the carmaker.
An indirect connection to Bentley
Around the same time that Sir David Brown took over Aston Martin, he purchased another struggling British carmaker, Lagonda. The company was developing a revolutionary twin-cam six-cylinder engine called the LB6, and Sir David wanted the engine for his new line of Aston Martin sports cars. The Lagonda engine had been designed by none other than W.O. Bentley—the man who co-founded Bentley Motors, who had long since been pushed out of the company bearing his name.
The history of the DB Series
Aston Martin built seven vehicles named in honour of owner Sir David Brown: The DB1, DB2, DB3, DB4, DB5, DB6, and the combo-breaker DBS all bore Sir David’s initials. In 1972, Sir David sold the car company, and the new owners ended the DB series of vehicles, but the name was revived in 1993 with the DB7 in honour of Sir David—who himself was given an honorary position at the company that same year.
Bond, James Bond
Of course, the most famous Aston Martin of them all is the DB5. Just over 1,000 examples were built between 1963 and 1965, but millions worldwide know this as the James Bond car. In the books, author Ian Fleming had specified an earlier Aston Martin DB Mark III as Bond’s car. Still, the DB5 was introduced in the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger, equipped with gadgets including machine guns, smoke screens, oil slicks, an ejector seat, and rotating license plates. Bond has driven several Aston Martin models over the years, including a V8 Vantage, a V12 Vanquish, and two DBS models, but the original DB5 will always be considered the quintessential Bond car.
The angular years
Today, the Aston Martin badge is most closely associated with swooping, evocatively curvy car designs, but in the 1970s the company was obsessed with angular, wedge-shaped designs. The trend began in 1976 with the Aston Martin Lagonda, a shockingly unconventional four-door luxury sedan with “folded-paper” body styling and the world’s first all-digital instrument panel. The Lagonda’s styling was further evolved in 1979 with the Bulldog, a radical concept car with gullwing doors and a sharply pointed nose. The Bulldog was meant to become the fastest road car on earth, but the project was abandoned before production could begin.
For Bond’s eyes only
While most of James Bond’s Aston Martins have been commercially available to anyone who could afford one, the DB10 seen in the 2015 film Spectre was exclusive to 007. As Aston Martin executive Marek Reichman explained to Variety, director Sam Mendes, producer Barbara Broccoli, and Bond star Daniel Craig were touring Aston Martin’s design studios when they saw a concept sketch on the wall. The Bond team insisted that this should be 007’s next car, and Aston Martin spent the next six months furiously working to turn the drawing into a real-world car. The DB10 was unveiled during the launch of the film Spectre, and eight of the 10 examples built were featured in the movie, with the remaining two used for promotional appearances.
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The Italian city will now charge visitors an entry fee during peak season.
Visiting the Floating City just got a bit more expensive.
Venice is officially the first metropolis in the world to start implementing a day-trip fee in an effort to help the Italian hot spot combat overtourism during peak season, The Associated Press reported. The new program, which went into effect, requires travellers to cough up roughly €5 (about $AUD8.50) per person before they can explore the city’s canals and historic sites. Back in January, Venice also announced that starting in June, it would cap the size of tourist groups to 25 people and prohibit loudspeakers in the city centre and the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello.
“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’ Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official, told AP News. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”
During this trial phase, the fee only applies to the 29 days deemed the busiest—between April 25 and July 14—and tickets will remain valid from 8:30 am to 4 pm. Visitors under 14 years of age will be allowed in free of charge in addition to guests with hotel reservations. However, the latter must apply online beforehand to request an exemption. Day-trippers can also pre-pay for tickets online via the city’s official tourism site or snap them up in person at the Santa Lucia train station.
“With courage and great humility, we are introducing this system because we want to give a future to Venice and leave this heritage of humanity to future generations,” Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) regarding the city’s much-talked-about entry fee.
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Omega Reveals a New Speedmaster Ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics
Your first look at the new Speedmaster Chronoscope, designed in the colour theme of the Paris Olympics.
The starters are on the blocks, and with less than 100 days to go until the Paris 2024 Olympics, luxury Swiss watchmaker Omega was bound to release something spectacular to mark its bragging rights as the official timekeeper for the Summer Games. Enter the new 43mm Speedmaster Chronoscope, available in new colourways—gold, black, and white—in line with the colour theme of the Olympic Games in Paris this July.
So, what do we get in this nicely-wrapped, Olympics-inspired package? Technically, there are four new podium-worthy iterations of the iconic Speedmaster.
The new versions present handsomely in stainless steel or 18K Moonshine Gold—the brand’s proprietary yellow gold known for its enduring shine. The steel version has an anodised aluminium bezel and a stainless steel bracelet or vintage-inspired perforated leather strap. The Moonshine Gold iteration boasts a ceramic bezel; it will most likely appease Speedy collectors, particularly those with an affinity for Omega’s long-standing role as stewards of the Olympic Games.
Notably, each watch bears an attractive white opaline dial; the background to three dark grey timing scales in a 1940s “snail” design. Of course, this Speedmaster Chronoscope is special in its own right. For the most part, the overall look of the Speedmaster has remained true to its 1957 origins. This Speedmaster, however, adopts Omega’s Chronoscope design from 2021, including the storied tachymeter scale, along with a telemeter, and pulsometer scale—essentially, three different measurements on the wrist.
While the technical nature of this timepiece won’t interest some, others will revel in its theatrics. Turn over each timepiece, and instead of a transparent crystal caseback, there is a stamped medallion featuring a mirror-polished Paris 2024 logo, along with “Paris 2024” and the Olympic Rings—a subtle nod to this year’s games.
Powering this Olympiad offering—and ensuring the greatest level of accuracy—is the Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 9908 and 9909, certified by METAS.
A Speedmaster to commemorate the Olympic Games was as sure a bet as Mondo Deplantis winning gold in the men’s pole vault—especially after Omega revealed its Olympic-edition Seamaster Diver 300m “Paris 2024” last year—but they delivered a great addition to the legacy collection, without gimmickry.
However, the all-gold Speedmaster is 85K at the top end of the scale, which is a lot of money for a watch of this stature. By comparison, the immaculate Speedmaster Moonshine gold with a sun-brushed green PVD “step” dial is 15K cheaper, albeit without the Chronoscope complications.
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The Omega Speedmaster Chronoscope in stainless steel with a leather strap is priced at $15,725; stainless steel with steel bracelet at $16,275; 18k Moonshine Gold on leather strap $54,325; and 18k Moonshine Gold with matching gold bracelet $85,350, available at Omega boutiques now.
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In our quest to locate the most exclusive and exciting wines for our readers, we usually ask the question, “How many bottles of this were made?” Often, we get a general response based on an annual average, although many Champagne houses simply respond, “We do not wish to communicate our quantities.” As far as we’re concerned, that’s pretty much like pleading the Fifth on the witness stand; yes, you’re not incriminating yourself, but anyone paying attention knows you’re probably guilty of something. In the case of some Champagne houses, that something is making a whole lot of bottles—millions of them—while creating an illusion of rarity.
We received the exact opposite reply regarding Armand de Brignac Blanc de Noirs Assemblage No. 4. Yasmin Allen, the company’s president and CEO, told us only 7,328 bottles would be released of this Pinot Noir offering. It’s good to know that with a sticker price of around $1,800, it’s highly limited, but it still makes one wonder what’s so exceptional about it.
Known by its nickname, Ace of Spades, for its distinctive and decorative metallic packaging, Armand de Brignac is owned by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy and Jay-Z and is produced by Champagne Cattier. Each bottle of Assemblage No. 4 is numbered; a small plate on the back reads “Assemblage Four, [X,XXX]/7,328, Disgorged: 20 April, 2023.” Prior to disgorgement, it spent seven years in the bottle on lees after primary fermentation mostly in stainless steel with a small amount in concrete. That’s the longest of the house’s Champagnes spent on the lees, but Allen says the winemaking team tasted along the way and would have disgorged earlier than planned if they’d felt the time was right.
Chef de cave, Alexandre Cattier, says the wine is sourced from some of the best Premier and Grand Cru Pinot Noir–producing villages in the Champagne region, including Chigny-les-Roses, Verzenay, Rilly-la-Montagne, Verzy, Ludes, Mailly-Champagne, and Ville-sur-Arce in the Aube département. This is considered a multi-vintage expression, using wine from a consecutive trio of vintages—2013, 2014, and 2015—to create an “intense and rich” blend. Seventy percent of the offering is from 2015 (hailed as one of the finest vintages in recent memory), with 15 percent each from the other two years.
This precisely crafted Champagne uses only the tête de cuvée juice, a highly selective extraction process. As Allen points out, “the winemakers solely take the first and freshest portion of the gentle cuvée grape press,” which assures that the finished wine will be the highest quality. Armand de Brignac used grapes from various sites and three different vintages so the final product would reflect the house signature style. This is the fourth release in a series that began with Assemblage No. 1. “Testing different levels of intensity of aromas with the balance of red and dark fruits has been a guiding principle between the Blanc de Noirs that followed,” Allen explains.
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Bill Henson Show Opens at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
Dark, grainy and full of shadows Bill Henson’s latest show draws on 35 mm colour film shot in New York City in 1989.
Bill Henson is one of Australia’s best-known contemporary photographers. When a show by this calibre of artist opens here, the art world waits with bated breath to see what he will unveil.
This time, he presents a historically important landscape series that chronicles a time in New York City that no longer exists. It’s a nostalgic trip back in time, a nocturnal odyssey through the frenetic, neon-lit streets of a long-lost America.
Known for his chiaroscuro style, Henson’s cinematic photographs often transform his subject into ambiguous objects of beauty. This time round, the show presents a mysterious walk through the streets of Manhattan, evoking a seedy, yet beautiful vision of the city.
Relying on generative gaps, these landscapes result from Henson mining his archive of negatives and manipulating them to produce a finished print. Sometimes, they are composed by a principle of magnification, with Henson honing in on details, and sometimes, they are created through areas of black being expanded to make the scene more cinematic and foreboding. Like silence in a film or the pause in a pulse, the black suggests the things you can’t see.
Henson’s illustrious career has spanned four decades and was memorably marred by controversy over a series of nude adolescent photographs shown in 2008, which made him front-page news for weeks. This series of portraits made Henson the subject of a police investigation during which no offence was found.
In recent years, Henson has been a sharp critic of cancel culture, encouraging artists to contribute something that will have lasting value and add to the conversation, rather than tearing down the past.
His work deals with the liminal space between the mystical and the real, the seen and unseen, the boundary between youth and adulthood.
His famous Paris Opera Project, 1990-91, pictured above, is similarly intense as the current show, dwelling on the border between the painterly and the cinematic.
Bill Henson’s ‘The Liquid Night’ runs until 11 May 2024 at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 8 Soudan Ln, Paddington NSW; roslynoxley9.com.au
