History of this site

First Steps
When I started to collect military wings as a teenager, many years ago, I had a wild dream to collect "a wing from every country in the world". I lived then in "Bomber County", Lincolnshire, England and had joined the Air Training Corps. When I started to collect I found the military attachés at foreign embassies and visiting pilots from other countries very accommodating. As a collector, one knew the badge or wing was genuine and what its nation of origin was. In those days it was not common to collect wings, I suppose, and people were very obliging, especially to a youth.

Alas, the world has changed. Wings have been discovered as a collectable, the number of collectors has mushroomed, volume of requests and security issues have deleted these traditional sources, and dealers and internet auctions have certainly arrived.

When I decided to revive and extend my collection, after some years of dormancy, I realised that the technology of communication had opened up the world of wings tremendously. Collecting had become popular and supply seemed to be everywhere. Wings never before seen in some world locations were suddenly available and being traded.

Identification Challenges
There was a problem. What were these items? Was this a military or civil wing? What discipline did some of the strange images on these items represent? What country is that item from? What era is that? Why is this one similar, but different, to that one?

In the late 1970's to early 1980's period, some brave men started to tackle these questions, piecing together the things they felt fairly comfortable with based on personal knowledge and research. This information was usually based on the wings of a single nation or the wings of a group of countries tied in conflict. Others started to assemble the pieces of knowledge and aggregate information, and to discuss it. A forum developed and networks of people grew, with knowledge about a defined area of wings collecting. The ensuing discussions and debates expanded knowledge and started to include historical information, based on extended research. Friendships were strengthened or broken in the striving for accuracy and information. The complex world of "the wings collector" had been created.

As I started to expand my own collection of global wings, I had a hunger for information and discovered that no-where could I go for a single source of overall information. Information was highly scattered or not apparently available. How could I tell if that "Iranian navigator's wing" was not in fact some symbolic badge of a fraternal organisation? How could I discover that this "unknown wing" was an Ethiopian wing from the post Emperor Haile Selassie era? Where could I get information about non-original wings? Quite honestly I could not!

Seeking Sources
Alas, whenever a material object becomes of interest and at times even before supply becomes scarce, replicators, fakers and rogues see a financial opportunity in the avarice of the collectors. The wings collector's world has become overloaded with "fakes", "reproductions", "copies", "restrikes" and "trash". Now the wings collector must also be aware that aside from the joy of finding "a wing from every country", they must also be conscious of a whole new language and discipline of "buyer beware". They must develop knowledge of a whole new area, "non-original" items.

In the meanwhile, along came Ebay, among other internet sites soon following. Suddenly this incredible medium was offering wings from everywhere. I had no clue about many of these wings. Along the way I had heard about various reference books some of which I started to collect, some already out of print and hard to find. I started a collection, in a notebook, of book titles, author and publisher, and bought what I could as I located one. Still too many mysteries existed. I sought out people knowledgable about finite areas of the subject and started to amass information in files. I had already started to collect digital images from wherever I could find them and asked for better images. These were all catalogued in various ways and ID assigned and verified from whatever sources I could find to verify them. I started to become knowledgeable and recognised families of wings, families of nations. I started to research heraldry and materials and national histories and to build a basis of knowledge, but still there was “something missing”.

A World Opening Up
Then one day, at a Militaria Fair, someone mentioned that a particular gentlemen living in the same city I live in had a substantial collection of great maturity, gave me his name and suggested I look him up. Some time later at another Fair, at which mostly guns and knives were for sale, (which interested me not one wink), just prior to leaving, I ran into an elderly gentleman with Ryker mounts full of wings on display. The name tag matched the name I had been given earlier. A "YES!" moment !!;