This is a sample issue of our newsletter No.36 September 2001 to give you an impression of what you will get by joining our club. Click on the article you are interested in and you will see sample parts of the content.

The Cards Are Out There                                                              

Internet Auction Report                                                                       back to top of the page

The two predictably big hitters came together with a Panagra Ford Trimotor fetching $300+. Otherwise action has been relatively quiet and many cards have remained unsold. It looks a little as if many prop-era cards may have reached saturation point with supply exceeding demand. Conversely 1st generation jets (707, DC8, CV880/990, Caravelle) continue to attract interest for all but the most common. Some extreme asking prices failed to move at all.

Continuing on the reprise on using the main net auction - Ebay - www.ebay.com, here is a guide to SELLING. The main difference from buying is that this is going to cost you money even if nothing sells. Ebay charge flat fee of 30 cents (=21 p) to list an item and therefore you will need to register a credit card to take this charge. This will also be billed with commission of 5% (on the sort of prices postcards fetch) if the item sells. Once this is done you are free to list items for sale. You will need to decide how you are going to be paid - otherwise people will send you useless foreign currency cheques. The only real options are $US cash or an electronic money transfer service such as www.paypal.com. These will charge commision but nothing like the amount that a bank would charge - it is nearer what you pay when using an overseas ATM. Funds can be withdrawn into a UK bank account or left in Paypal to fund internet purchase payments.

Such at it is, the skill comes in preparing your listing. First - what category, second, framing a title to catch the maximum number of possible buyers search criteria. You can easily upload a scanned image and this is pretty well essential unless you are listing a bulk lot of cards.

One specific feature of Ebay is the "feedback" concept. Traders are encouraged to leave feedback about trading partners and the numbers of these are listed alongside the traders identification. Repeated negative feedback (e.g for non-payment, non supply, failure to resolve disputes on item quality) can result in suspension or banning.

Below are some scans illustrating the material most favoured by U.S. collectors that may be of interest to new members as pre-war Pan Am material. A real photographic card of a Pacific Alaska Airlines Lockheed 10 Electra in Alaska (if you are into Lockheed twins the Peter Marson has just published a major history, covering over 7000 civil and military examples).

And the combination of three "most wanteds", real photographic, Trimotor & Panagra.

BAC-111 Catalogue                                                                                back to top of the page

With replies now in from most collectors who requested (or we sent anyway) the provisional listings, we can now get some idea of the numbers of the cards that are "out there" for the BAC-111. As mentioned earlier, the rest of the task is presentation design and image selection. With so many airlines represented, the alphabetical airline sequence is not appropriate. The final version will be some variation on a geographical scheme, which will have the effect of highlighting the types success in North and South America as well as its comparative failure, as compared with the Viscount, in penetrating the Asian and Australasian markets.

The current statistics are, with geographical attribution by airline:

The result will have about 20 pages, about 5 more that previously, accounted for by extra listings and illustrations. Expect a price increase for this reason.

Among the airline issues, the most prolific is TAROM, while sparsest, relative to the size of the fleet is American, who only slipped a couple onto a multi-view and then called it an Astrojet 400, presumably to avoid "American" having anything to do with the "British" Aircraft Corporation.

British Airways features most often on Airport cards, many of these being in Germany. The publisher cards have captured images of some of the uS users of ex-American and Braniff fleets and tracked others through the various mergers that ended up as US Air. They have also captured some of the shorter lived UK operators and the final users in West and South Africa. Even a few of the quite extensive corporate conversions appear on cards issued by owners or converters.

American Airlines only issued BAC-111 images on this multiview with a stwardess, 707s and 727. The centre view promotes "astracolor only on American.

Images 3 and 5, at Washington-National are enlarged below.            

Worth a Second Glance: The Polish Eagle and the Falcon       back to top of the page

This extended version of Worth a Second Glance was triggered by a query from Christian Gerbich, author of the article on 3D cards last time. He had acquired a Constellation card in apparentely, the colours of U.S. Capital Airlines but with UK markings and issued by Falcon Airways (Fig.1). It emerged that a few copies of this rare Connie card had surfaced in the Bournemouth area and one, maybe from this set, was on offer for $100 at the AI2001 show in Miami. The query was whether there was a Capital_Falcon connection.

Fig.1: Falcon Airways issue b&w card of ex American Overseas, Pan American & BOAC L.049 Constellation G-AMUP

The answer to the Capital colours question may lie in a doctored image, although the shot is not the same as the equivalent Capital "Queen of all the Air" card (Fig.2).

Fig.2: Capital Airways colour card of L.049. This is L.049 ex KLM N86532 - their longest in service 1950 - 1960

Equally the markings may be real, as G-AMUP was indeed ex Capital and Falcon merely overpainted the Capital red with their own black colours on purchase in 1961. This was not however its first UK owner, which was BOAC, who took it from Pan American in 1953 and operated it until 1955 when it was sold to Capital.

If Blackbushe and Bournemouth based Falcon was not G-AMUP's first owner as a UK airliner, then Falcon itself was also not the first commercial venture of its owner Captain Marian Kozubski, late of the Polish Air Force. Like many, he had made his escape from Poland to France and then via Switzerland and Spain to the UK. He served in Bomber Command and post-war, flew on the Indian partition airlifts. After service on the Berlin airlift he joined William Dempster, and became chief pilot of their Tudor fleet. Then, in 1954, he led a group that purchased Hurn based Independent Air Travel. The "Travel" in the name changed to "Transport" with the purchase of 4 ex-BWIA Vikings in 1956 and entry into the inclusive tour charter market. DC-4's were added in 1957, one of which was involved in an incident over Albanian airspace, resulting on a few days internment and much press coverage.

Independent are known to have issued photographic cards of the DC-4's ground and air views and an interior. One Viking caused the collapse of the airline. It was carrying Proteus engines for the El Al Britannia fleet when it crashed on a house at Southall after take-off from Heathrow in Sep 1958. The enquiry revealed overloading, crew over hours, and unlicenced engineers working on the engines. Capt. Kozubski the chairman and managing director left the ailine which was reconstructed as Blue-Air.

Kozubski resurfaced almost immediately as managing director of Falcon Airways in March 1959, using one ex Independent Viking. Writer and TV presenter Clive James wrote a composite and exaggerated portrait of the stereotype airline buccaneer of the time, which seems to include to bit of Kozubski, although it strangely omits his moustache and beard. "I had made mistake of looking out of the window at the moment when the pilot arrived by Jeep. He was wearing an eye-patch, walked with a stiff leg and saluted the aircraft with what appeared to be an aluminium hand. Around his neck the silver brassard of what appeared to be a Polish Award for bravery gleamed in the week sunlight" Whatever the truth of this, the real Kozubski was the stuff of anecdotes if not legends. When in dispute with an airport official he was reported as having arranged for that person's car to be towed by tractor to a remote rural location. He drove his own Jaguar in the Monte Carlo rallye and survived one spectacular crash in it while driving to pilot a flight out of Heathrow.

1960 was a successful year for Falcon despite a high profile overshoot at Southend which left a Hermes on the railway track but no injuries. The Hermes even made one or two transatlantic flights. One of these was named "James Robertson Justice" after the bearded actor, who held a seat on the board of Falcon.

In early 1961 three Constellation arrived, including the card subject G-AMUP. All three were ex BOAC and had been traded to Capital for L.749 models in the emergency post-Comet1 re-equipment. Kozubski ferried them across the Atlantic personally, but only MUP entered service. Falcon incurred fines for operating it transatlantic without inadequate navigation aids and dinghies. The defence was that a more direct eastbound route had been taken due to diagnosis of pneumonia in baby passenger on an immigrant flight at Gander. With only one aircraft operational Falcon was vulnerable to technical problems and finally lost its operating certificate in September due to "the running down of operations in the UK". It is suspected that Kazubski was a marked man by authorities who continually found new reasons for not certifying the Constellation.

Kozubski continued to fly Constellations, firstly, as chief pilot of Austrian outfit "Aero Transport" which had had connections with Falcon, the Constellation being one of the ex Falcon, ex Capital batch. They went out of business after allegations of gun running in Djibouti. On the collapse of Aero Transport, Kozubski faced charges for tax and customs offences. He next surfaced as owner of Britair East Africa, with, again, an ex Falcon and Capital L.049 which had meanwhile been with Euravia. This flew tours from Rotterdam to East Africa for the 1965 season and then folded. Kozubski later flew with Aden Airways and, like many of his style, got involved in the Biafra - Nigeria war (1967 - 68), flying DC-3's and DC-4's as rudimentary bombers. While thus engaged he suffered severe combat injuries. He recovered however, and after the war, in 1971, returned to fly again in Nigeria, where, he claimed, the authorities allowed him to fly on his terms. He died in 1979.

Sources: Tony Merton Jones: British Independent Airlines since 1946; Peter Marson: The Lockheed Constellation, Propliner 8 & 31; The Sky tramps: A book of Air Journies: Mike Draper, author of "Shadows"- the story of the air war in Biafra.

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