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Lot 1123

PONTON D'AMECOURT, GUSTAVE LOUIS DE. 1825-1888.
Collection de mémoires sur la locomotion aérienne sans ballons. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1864.

6 – 13 December 2018, 10:00 EST
New York

US$500 - US$800

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PONTON D'AMECOURT, GUSTAVE LOUIS DE. 1825-1888.

Collection de mémoires sur la locomotion aérienne sans ballons. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1864. 6 parts in 1 volume, 4to. Original wrappers for each part, bound together with cloth and black board spine strip. Chipping to page edges, browning.

Viscount Gustave de Ponton d'Amecourt was a man of many interests, including archaeology, numismatics and aviation. He was a personal friend of Jules Verne, with whom he shared a futuristic and visionary interest in flying machines. In 1861, he filed for patents for an invention—for which he built a prototype with the help of aeronautical pioneer Gabriel de La Landelle—which he called the hélicoptère, the first use of the word in any language. The device, although impractical as a manned flying machine, consisted of a motor and two propellers producing vertical lift, and introduced the concept of a vertical take-off aircraft more than 40 years before the Wright Brothers first successful heavier-than-air flights.

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