One Man’s Quest To Collect Every Single Item From The Concorde

He says he’s not obsessive – we’ll leave that for you to decide. But Nathan Shedoff certainly has an obsessive eye for good design, prompting him to amass a multi-year collection of stuff you would have found aboard the jet.

The enormous collection, picked from eBay offerings between 2004 and 2007, has landed Sherdoff enough cutlery and plates, for example, to host a supersonic-themed dinner for 16.

But dinner is just the start of the material trove. Sherdoff has what seems like nearly everything Concorde: bottle openers, coffee makers, letter openers, dishes, towels, binoculars, flasks – it goes on and on. If you could find it on the plane, or buy it in the gift shop, the odds seem likely that Sherdoff has one. Or five.

But Sherdoff isn’t a hoarder. He justifies his aesthetic fixation thusly:

The Concorde was one of those few iconic symbols of Wonder and Accomplishment. Sure, the people who could afford the flight had to be willing to fork over some serious money for the trip, but neither the plane nor the flight was about the expense. It was about the future.

I certainly don’t have the budget for such a collection (nor the room). And really, my only memory of the Concorde’s existence is a faint one, as it flew above me as an eight-year-old on a trip to London. But good design defies nostalgia, and we dig that Nathan is keeping it alive. Just don’t tell us how much it all cost you. [Core77 via Nathan Sherdoff]