An interesting collection of contact sheets that I purchased about 26 years ago for the Pan Am DC-8 . In addition to the aircraft, there are lots of great shots of Long Beach airport as well as some of the islands off of the coast of Los Angeles. I have lots of great memories of that airport; when I was a child my dad and I would hang out there and watch planes, listening in on his big Webcor multi-band radio.
The DC-8 was an interesting purchase by PA; they ordered 25 DC-8s and only 20 707s because at the time Boeing was thought of as mostly a military aircraft provider and Douglas the premier supplier of passenger aircraft. PA didn’t take all of the DC-8s ordered, only about 19 if memory serves me correctly, but they did operate over 130 707s/720s of various types throughout the years, all the way until 1981. Between the huge fleet of 707s followed by being the launch customer for the 747, Pan Am had a dramatic impact on Boeing’s transition to be the pre-eminent provider of commercial aircraft.
I paid a pretty penny for this collection all those years ago, and I wonder how much something like this would be worth today. I would think it would be a fairly rare item, so finding something comparable for sale would prove to be a bit of a challenge. But as always, the true value is only what someone is willing to pay for it.
