Military and Industrial Antiques

Wendy Moonan of the NY Times writes an article on a new New York City gallery specializing in military and industrial antiques. Ever have that hard to find comp on a rocket powered ejection seat, or fan blades from a Rolls Royce turbo jet engine, well there are places out there selling them.

Moonan writes this is what it sells: a set of three-foot-long binoculars with 150-millimeter Nikon lenses made for a Japanese battleship in World War II, later recovered by American troops; titanium compressor fan blades from a Rolls-Royce turbojet engine from the 1960s repurposed as a giant mirror frame; a rocket-powered ejection seat from a 1950s British RoyalAir Force Canberra nuclear bomber. These are the “industrial antiques” at the Nicholas Brawer gallery at 28 East 72nd Street, which opened last month.

Mr. Brawer is an American art historian trained at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and the author of “British Campaign Furniture: Elegance Under Canvas, 1740-1914” (Harry N. Abrams). His stock of shiny mechanical contraptions and military hardware also includes brass luggage racks from old first-class British train carriages, 1930s silver cocktail shakers (one with a shrapnel shell base) and miniature English mahogany yachts designed to sail on ponds.

In addition to the Nicholas Brawer Gallery, Moonan also notes Web sites like MantiquesModern.com or ClevelandArt.com, and Michael Trapp as other sources for industrial antiques.

Click HERE to read the full article