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Lot 67
WRIGHT BROTHERS: 1908. WRIGHT BROTHERS LETTER COURTING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS.
Typed Letter Signed ("Wright Brothers / O.W."), Dayton, OH, February 22, 1908, to Major Moedebeck, Strassburg, Germany,
Typed Letter Signed ("Wright Brothers / O.W."), Dayton, OH, February 22, 1908, to Major Moedebeck, Strassburg, Germany,
3 – 4 November 2021, 13:00 PDT
Los AngelesUS$3,000 - US$5,000
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WRIGHT BROTHERS: 1908.
WRIGHT BROTHERS LETTER COURTING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS.
Typed Letter Signed ("Wright Brothers / O.W."), Dayton, OH, February 22, 1908, to Major Moedebeck, Strassburg, Germany, on Wright Brothers letterhead.
Provenance: Walter R. Benjamin (receipt dated November 27, 1953).
In full: Dear Sir: / Your letter of recent date was received. We were sorry, that on account of our absence from home last October, we did not have the pleasure of meeting Hauptmann Hildebrand when he visited our city. But we were glad to have an investigation of our flights of 1906 made by one of your countrymen, and especially by one of Hauptmann Hildebrand's standing.
Our time has been so.fully [sic] occupied the past few years with business affairs that we have had very little time for writing, but we hope to have more leisure before long, when we will be pleased to give to the public further accounts of our experiments.
Thanking you for the invitation to contribute to the pages of the Aeronautische Mitteilunen, we are, / Very truly yours, / Wright Brothers / O.W."
Orville Wright here signs for both he and Wilbur in this letter sent at the time they were pursuing contracts in both the United States and in Europe. They had finally been awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Signal Corps that month and would, a month from this letter, have a contract to form a French aviation company. It was August of that year when Wilbur Wright thrilled the French public with his demonstrations at Le Mans and a month later when Orville demonstrated a nearly identical flyer at Fort Myer, Virginia. By 1909, they were the among the most famous people in the world.
Typed Letter Signed ("Wright Brothers / O.W."), Dayton, OH, February 22, 1908, to Major Moedebeck, Strassburg, Germany, on Wright Brothers letterhead.
Provenance: Walter R. Benjamin (receipt dated November 27, 1953).
In full: Dear Sir: / Your letter of recent date was received. We were sorry, that on account of our absence from home last October, we did not have the pleasure of meeting Hauptmann Hildebrand when he visited our city. But we were glad to have an investigation of our flights of 1906 made by one of your countrymen, and especially by one of Hauptmann Hildebrand's standing.
Our time has been so.fully [sic] occupied the past few years with business affairs that we have had very little time for writing, but we hope to have more leisure before long, when we will be pleased to give to the public further accounts of our experiments.
Thanking you for the invitation to contribute to the pages of the Aeronautische Mitteilunen, we are, / Very truly yours, / Wright Brothers / O.W."
Orville Wright here signs for both he and Wilbur in this letter sent at the time they were pursuing contracts in both the United States and in Europe. They had finally been awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Signal Corps that month and would, a month from this letter, have a contract to form a French aviation company. It was August of that year when Wilbur Wright thrilled the French public with his demonstrations at Le Mans and a month later when Orville demonstrated a nearly identical flyer at Fort Myer, Virginia. By 1909, they were the among the most famous people in the world.



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