Rare and important material related to World War II will be offered on sale by Bonhams on on June 5 at its Madison Avenue salesroom. Timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the 1944 Normandy Landings, or “D-Day,” the sale features 350 lots, including important manuscripts, famous photographs, crucial wartime technology, authentic weaponry, personal mementos and battlefield souvenirs.
NYC Veteran will participate at the auction, selling some of his 50 year old WWII Collection. A 71 year old Army veteran, Rodney Hilton Brown is also an honorary Marine that lives on E. 57th and has invested his life savings in WW II Memorabilia for over 50 years in lieu of IRA or 401K.
He is now selling some treasures at auction in hopes of sharing them with museums and young students of history. Rodney’s treasures include some extraordinary pieces – for instance the ORIGINAL Dow Jones Ticker Tape that came over the NYSE on June 6, 1944. It was the first time in the history of the exchange when trading ceased and the traders stopped for two minutes of silent prayer. Is solidarity and support for the troops, when trading resumed, the DJIA hit an all-time high for the year.
The sale, presented in two sessions, will address WWII in its entirety by tackling both the geographic and political complexities. Highlights of the morning session, which is focused on the European Theater and North African campaigns include a German Army Enigma enciphering machine (est. $50,000-80,000) and several lots of memorabilia related to the British Flying Ace Douglas Bader (estimates from $5,000–20,000). Among a broad selection of D-Day material are an important D-Day flown flag from an American LST-493, one of a handful of surviving flags flown from D-Day ships (est. $12,000-18,000), and a series of the hourly bulletins of D-Day action from “The Dow Jones Hourly News Digest” (est. $12,000-18,000).
The afternoon session will be devoted to the Pacific Theater. Highlights include the declaration of war on America and Britain by Japan that happened after Pearl Harbor (est. $12,000-18,000); the Rosenthal Iwo Jima flag raising photograph sent from Associated Press Guam to San Francisco (est. $50,000-80,000); U.S. President Harry Truman’s signed Hiroshima speech (est. $28,000-38,000); and a collection of 24 photographs, after Yosuke Yamahata, of The Bombing of Nagasaki (est. $25,000-35,000).
