WAILUKU - Some people collect airline memorabilia, and some people REALLY collect airline memorabilia.
If you are interested in TWA stuff, Richard Dan is the man to see.
Old stewardess uniforms? He's got 'em. Logo golf tees? He's got 'em. Rosenthal china plates from first-class? He's got 'em.
Passengers seats? He's got 'em.
Really? Seats. Yes.
Uh, how about a Trans World Airlines lavatory door? He's got it. A pilot's fold-down bed (Bet you didn't know pilots slept on the job)? He's got one.
Dan is not a collector. He's a Wailuku pawnbroker, and over the past 33 years, he's had some odd stuff come through his shop, but the ultimate TWA collection ranks among the strangest.
It belonged to an island resident who died this year. The man's heirs live in Switzerland, and via some Internet negotiations, Dan acquired the lot, which was stored at a warehouse in Kihei. And it's a lot. "Five or six truckloads," he said.
One of Dan's managers, Krystal Cabiles, has been busy sorting, cleaning, identifying and posting items for sale. They are going briskly.
A pair of passenger seats fetched $825. Dan has several pairs; in fact, he has nearly half a first-class passenger cabin, including the walls and overhead bins.
Cabiles' favorites are the flight attendant uniforms. A special one is made of gold paper, for a "cosmopolitan" promotion, featuring New York and other cities.
Trans World Airlines was one of the original American international carriers, along with Pan-American. It fell on hard times after deregulation, went through two bankruptcies in the 1990s and was absorbed by American Airlines in 2001.
The heirs, who needed someone to dispose of the hobby items, found Dan through his Webauctionshawaii.com site.
"I promised my wife I would get rid of all of it within 90 days," Dan said Monday.
A chunk of the fuselage of a Boeing 747, about 3-by-4 feet and weighing perhaps 30 pounds, has already sold.
Cabiles and Jaylene Souza are still unpacking boxes. Monday, they found gravy boats.
It's been awhile since airliners needed gravy boats.
There are also a few Braniff items in the collection. Cabiles, who admits to having played stewardess as a child, now gets to relive the days when flying was glamorous. During her research, she found this summary: "Since 1938, the federal Civil Aeronautics Board had controlled the industry's routes, schedules and prices, which were generally kept artificially high to protect the airlines. This left the carriers with little to compete over except whose flight attendants had the sexiest outfits (a trend begun in 1965 by Braniff, whose stewardesses would shed several layers of their uniforms during a flight, a routine known as the 'air strip.' "
Cabiles' favorite is a 1968 TWA minidress, which is yellow with orange stripes. She was also intrigued by uniforms designed to make stewardesses look like nurses.
Dan said that as the economy declines, the range of his clientele expands, which means that he is seeing more and more unusual collectibles. With gold at all-time high prices ($1,063 an ounce Monday), he is buying lots of gold, but customers selling gold are also bringing in World War II souvenirs, samurai swords, chops (oriental signature seals) and other out-of-the-way treasures.
Although most of the TWA stuff will probably go to off-island collectors via Internet sales, pieces also will be on display at Dan's Cash For Gold retail store on North Market Street.
The TWA collection is unusual for its size and oddball components. But it's by no means the strangest thing that ever washed up on Maui that Dan has bought and resold. That would be the wax sarcophagus that had formerly held the bones of a Benedictine monk that he acquired a few years ago.
* Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.
