Today in 1967, the first SST (Supersonic Transport) model was shown in Paris of a truly ground-breaking - or air-breaking - aircraft: Concorde. We thought that this would be an excellent time to look at the aircraft's potential as an investment.
 Concorde flight test model |
Concorde is or was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport which entered service in 1976 and retired in 2003. The retirement was not due to an improved model coming onto the market, but for disputed reasons, primarily to do with the relative difficulty in making great profits from supersonic flights, as well as the reaction to its only crash.
The fact that it was not only groundbreaking but also remains the greatest plane of its kind immediately offers substantial possibilities for the craft as an investment possibility.
A generation who remember Concorde from their youth, but probably never had a chance to fly on it, are now reaching their late twenties and early thirties and gaining disposable income.
Already it seems that it is being underestimated: back in October we reported on a collection of Concorde memorabilia at Regency Superior which included flight covers, FDCs, photo cards, autographed covers (mostly crew member signed), and mint and used aerograms.
The collection had been listed at a humdrum $2,000-3,000 but soared past this to sell for $18,720.
| British Airways tribute to Concorde |
It's not the first time that Concorde memorabilia has surpassed expectations either. In a Toulouse auction in 2007, a set of Concorde landing gear sold for $36,000 whilst a machmeter (a device which shows the ratio of the true airspeed to the speed of sound) estimated at €1,500 to €2,500, broke the price barrier and sold for €29,000.
The pinnacle of Concorde auctions to date was a needle-shaped nose cone sold off as part of a series of auctions in London and Paris in 2003 and 2004, which fetched more than £250,000 ($394,700). It seems likely that more six-figure prices are yet to come.
Collectors interested in collecting memorabilia related to pioneers of flight will be interested to know that the first business cheque signed jointly by the Wright brothers, and parts of trans-Atlantic flyer Charles Lindbergh's plane The Spirit of St Louis are currently available.
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