The Box It Came In

Old-Timey Stuff

Ran across this photo the other day. It was taken at a WWII-era aircraft manufacturing plant.


(Click pic to embiggenate!)

Ignore the gal playing with the aluminum lathe scrap. Apparently no one bothered to tell her that stuff is razor sharp, and if there's any steel in there, it'll have a nice film of sulfur-rich cutting oil that'll never come out of that wool dress...

No, what caught my eye are the huge crates in the background. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that Vought, North American, Boeing, Douglas and all the other plane manufacturers had to have the engines shipped from Pratt & Whitney or Wright or even Rolls Royce, and you just don't strap a huge radial engine to a wooden pallet!

In toy collecting, you always get the top price for having it in the original packaging. I wonder how much you could get for a Cyclone still in the original crate?