P-61 Night Fighter A-2

[TankBuster]

At Reading I noticed more than a few ass holes asking vets to sign multiple copies of books, posters and photos. They were obviously dealers out to make a buck on these guys.

It was the same deal at the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends show a few years back.

 

[Stony]

Grant wrote:
At Reading I noticed more than a few ass holes asking vets to sign multiple copies of books, posters and photos. They were obviously dealers out to make a buck on these guys.


It was the same deal at the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends show a few years back.

I've done several symposiums and aces' reunions and it's a standing order that there will be no more than three of each item for signing, just because of the "reselling" issue. All panelists and aces were informed that they had the "right of refusal" for anyone.

We had this one guy that would attend every aces' reunion and bring boxes of wings from 1/18 scale warbirds and have them sign them. He would then put the planes back together and you would see them on his website and ebay within days. He has since been banned from any aces' events.

 

[EMBLEMHUNTER]

Yeah ,there always seems to be someone that messes it up for the "true" autograph collectors, I collect them for keeps and never plan to sell them,and I always ask the person doing the signing to "personalise" mine by having them put to "................" from "......" and the day/unit etc type of thing on them.
I really don't like just a "signed" photo , it seems too impersonal to me .
I was at the Reading MAAM show twice with a friend that lives just a few miles down the road , we're both of the same opinion as to getting signatures, we like them personalised to our name etc , my friend has his framed up along with a leather patch made by "yours truly" and he has over 100 various signatures with the patches I did for him, they really look neat with the framing/matting and the photo/s of the pilot/crewman signature card/photo !!!!!!

I'm surprised that some of the men agree to more than one signature as after the first one the other two can be sold, unless they're personalised, but I guess it can still happen anyway.

 

[Stony]

I went over to Al Jones' condo today to get signatures for Johnny (Emblemhunter). Al showed me his "war room" with his medals, flight jacket, RAF gauntlet gloves, flight suit from when he flew B-52s and a lot of his WWII photos. Cool stuff and he told me a few war stories too.

Since Al and I are both avid golfers, we are getting together next Sunday to play a round. More stories to come I'm sure.

 

[EMBLEMHUNTER]

This is a Bronco 1761, which I believe is one of the last A-2 contracts. The pilot is Al Jones and this was a symposium at the Museum of Flight in Seattle this last Saturday. As you can see, the cuffs are missing and Al said they were pretty bad so he cut them off. Other than that, the jacket is all original. You can see the three German swastikas on the back for his three victories. One Stuka, one Ju-88 and one Me-410. The Stuka victory was while flying a Beaufighter in the RAF before he transferred to the AAF.

P-61 pilot A-2s are rare, so I was gushing pretty good when he let me take pictures of it.

Note the patch here has the 414th NFS that has been overpainted onto his first training unit of the 349th NFS .

 

[EMBLEMHUNTER]

Hey Stony , got the signature cards, Much thanks amigo, they're great one for my buddy and one for me and the spare I'll give to a friend in Orlando who's just starting to collect WW-2 autographs , tell Al Much thanks too for all he did for us in WW-2 it's VERY much appreciated !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Johnny
Emblemhunter