Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

This airplane was given to my great-grandfather in 1929 after the first flight of this ship, which was called the Dornier Do X. It's a flying airship, a luftship. It was made in Switzerland to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles.

APPRAISER

Did he work on this plane?

GUEST

Yes, he worked on, I believe, the design.

APPRAISER

And this is his name down here on it?

GUEST

His name was Harvey Brewton.

APPRAISER

There are many toy versions of this plane. When you do the history of this airplane, it was made in 1929, there were only two others made. It was a total failure economically. But at the time it was the heaviest, biggest flying boat ever made. For that reason it has a lot of mystique.

GUEST

And what I think's amazing about this, too, is that this ship went to the German Museum of History, and was destroyed in an air raid by the Royal Air Force. Yes.

APPRAISER

So it's no longer in existence. And what's interesting to me as a toy person is that it existed for such a short period of time, it really must have captured a lot of attention. Because there are at least a half a dozen American cast iron toy planes based on this.

GUEST

I did not know that. I didn't know there was a toy market.

APPRAISER

So what's exciting is to see this incredible scale model. It's made out of a cast metal alloy. There's not many times you can say something's unique, and this apparently is unique. There might be a few other models that were made as presentation pieces. My research has not turned up any. I saw a carved wooden... not the flying boat, but another Dornier seaplane, and it was a rather crude rendition, and it sold for over $4,000.

GUEST

Wow.

APPRAISER

So I would say it's worth, at auction, at least $6,000 to $8,000.

GUEST

Awesome.

APPRAISER

And who knows? It could double that. Because it is a magic, magic piece of aviation history.

GUEST

It's a wonderful piece of history.