A propeller signed by Orville Wright could be worth more than $1 million, and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) wants to make sure the Aviation Hall of Fame doesn’t sell it.
An official with the organization says that won’t happen and that Turner’s ‘cease and desist’ order has no impact on the organization.
Hall President and Vice Chairman Michael Quiello said any talk about selling the signed propeller was put aside more than two years ago, the Associated Press reported.
According to the AP, the propeller was bought by a former trustee for $37,000 and donated to the hall in 2004. Trustees later rediscovered it in the collection, and the board had it appraised in 2013. It was pegged then at $275,000.
Quiello said the expense to conserve the propeller for public view didn't fit the hall's business and financial plans, the AP said, and trustees considered selling it for display at another aviation-related site, such as the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington or the Wright airplane factory in Dayton, where a redevelopment project is planned.
"The board now realizes we have something that is not only an artifact, it's a national treasure and this should not be sold to a highest bidder to be placed in somebody's office, or placed in somebody's bar, or sold to a foreign businessman so he can put it on his wall someplace," he told the newspaper. "This belongs literally to the people of the United States and anybody interested in aviation."
The 8 1/2-foot-long wooden propeller has something Hall of Fame officials say no other airplane artifact is known to have: the signature of Orville Wright, who with his brother Wilbur invented the first practical airplane.
The propeller is believed to have been on a Wright-built float plane and, according to an appraisal history, was signed in November 1944 at Orville Wright's Oakwood home.
Because it is the only one of its kind, Hall of Fame officials say it could actually be worth much more than the 2013 estimate.
“People are saying this is worth seven figures, easy,” Quiello said.
Turner and the Hall of Fame have been in an ongoing battle since the group announced last year it was moving its enshrinement ceremony from Dayton to Texas.
Turner claims the organization is in ‘financial crisis’ and wants to make sure it doesn’t sell any of its artifacts.
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