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I've just finished unloading my load of "goodies" from the Hughes Trading
Company Closing Sale (Melbourne, Australia). I've dealt with, and been
fascinated by, this company for over 30 years and it's tragic to see so much
history go for scrap for the want of the right buyer in the right place at
the
right time. For obvious security reasons the owners always actively
discouraged anyone from browsing in the yard proper, thereby missing many
impulse sales over many years, and 50 years outside storage is never kind.
Few people will now have any idea what was there, since most has gone to
the melting pots in recent months. The sale came to my notice only 2 weeks
ago and half the catalogue appeared only in the last few days. Our media
has many reports of deceased estate businesses being sold to distribute
to descendants, of businesses whose principal asset now is prime
development land, and of old businesses being rapidly liquidated because
of the great difficulties they will have complying with our new "Goods and
Services Tax", which commences 01 July. I guess all these 3 may well
apply to Hughes Trading Company. As a result a rich source of Mil-veh
and Mil-a/c parts is almost gone.
Fortunately our B24 Liberator Memorial Group were able to make good
use of some volunteer funds, but many buyers were scrap dealers and
"scroungers" (vendor's description), or buyers of rare items simply to save
them (like me) or genuinely after the odd item within their particular field
of interest (also like me). 10 brand new, cosmolined Staghound crown
wheels and pinions were bought for the melting pot.
The MV enthusiast (and former Hughes employee) making a documentary
on this has advised that further items and the many unsold lots will be
offered May 13th. See his site www.imagecontrol.com.au/hughes.html
and his linked CMP pages for further information and a good drool.
Obligatory MV content: among the "MB/GPW" parts I bought is an OD
rear axle assembly, approximately jeep size, outer end plates are semi-
circular to circular with 4 bolt holes plus pilot(?) hole. There is a
guard(?)
plate bolted to the top front of the diff, above the pinion universal, which
is attached by 3 cap screws and has a rubber buffer on the top front of it.
Cast on the diff edge is 026042 G No4. A tag on the diff cover says
"USE SAE90 GL4 OIL ONLY". Can anyone ID please?
The rest of my buy comprises mainly NOS supposedly WW2 aircraft
parts (British). Can anyone direct me to a forum similar to this where I may
be able to seek help to positively ID those items? Many thanks.
Allan Stark
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 01 2000 - 05:30:07 PDT