Military aircraft books an auction bonanza

Former Ansett Airlines pilot, the late Paul Gray, was a mad collector of mainly military aircraft books – which he assembled over a lifetime.

The books, in all some 2500 volumes, have been stored for the past 19 years and will be auctioned from 9.30am Friday June 19 at Young’s Auctions weekly sale at 229 Camberwell Road, East Hawthorn.

Paul Gray died several years ago and auctioneer David Young said the collection would be broken into 120 lots for the sale.

“Ninety per cent of the collection is books on military aircraft – while the remaining 10 per cent is split between civil aviation and cars and motorcycles,” he said.

“While some of the more important books will be sold individually, for much of the auction we have sorted the collection into groups by such criteria as publishers, biographies, squadron histories, flying aces and markings.”

The auction also contains a large collection of vinyl records from a veteran of Australia’s music industry.

There are 90 boxes of records and books on the industry covering early record labels, rock and roll, jazz and Elvis Presley memorabilia.