He's been gone 11 years now, but I still think of my dad every Father's Day. I loved and respected him deeply, and we got on very well despite being different in a lot of ways. We also had a number of common interests, one of which (eventually) was aviation.
Father's Day also causes me to reflect on being a father, particularly in regards to my two wonderful daughters, and soon to include a son-in-law, as Fenya and Bobby are set to tie the knot next Saturday before moving to Toronto in July.
With all the ladies away at work this afternoon, and Bobby and I cooling our heels between church and his lunch date with his parents, the topic of planes arose due to a post-service conversation with a former CF-104 pilot and aviation buff. Shared interests are a joy to be treasured, so I brought out Dad's collection of aviation ingots he started collecting while I was still in high school.
Called the Jane's Medallic Register of the World's Great Aircraft, it is a collection of 100 bronze ingots electroplated with gold that depicts significant and influential airplanes and helicopters, from the Wright Brothers Flyer to the SR-71 Blackbird. The reverse of each ingot shows the profile views of the aircraft, and each one sports a shiny proof finish.
This was a product offered up by the Franklin Mint as a kind of subscription; another collector wrote about getting them regularly from January 1984 to April 1989. Once complete, a storage case arrived allowing the owner to nestle the entire collection into 4 velvet-lined trays. There is also a small tract describing each aircraft and an accompanying box to store them in.
I think Dad figured these as a sort of artistic investment, which turns out to have been kind of a futile hope. Based on some limited eBay searches, the $20 price per ingot doesn't appear to have even held up against inflation, let alone appreciated in value but I hope Dad took some joy from these, regardless.He was a hard-working and busy guy who didn't have any real hobbies or pastimes to speak of, and I wonder if perhaps he saw these as a shinier, classier version of the airplane cigarette cards he collected as a boy.
Despite the fact they don't display terribly well and spend the bulk of their time collecting dust (albeit in a handsome box), I can't imagine parting with them anytime soon. I am no numismatist but I definitely enjoy the ingots in the same way I enjoy beautifully minted coins, marveling at the remarkable translation of a 3-dimensional image onto a (mostly) 2-dimensional surface. The tiny ingots have a surprising heft to them which adds a tactile element to their enjoyment, the proof finish is very handsome and the artwork is wonderful to behold.
Bobby and I spent the better part of an hour looking at these beauties and our discussion covered an immense range of topics, from ramjets to warplanes, from history to our relationships with our fathers. I suppose that makes this register officially a conversation piece.
When I told Bobby that, barring a surprise sale when we inevitably downsize, there is a better than even chance of him inheriting the collection someday, he started a bit. He looked the four trays over again, spread out across the downstairs table, and said, "I can't really see myself selling something like this either."
Which I found tremendously gratifying on a great number of levels.
Happy Father's Day!
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