With a handful of aircraft sparkplugs, Christie Bruns invites buyers at the EAA Surplus Artifact Sale deep in Camp Scholler. That’s an R-1830 engine from a DC-3 behind her, and it is for sale. Photo by Frederick A. Johnsen

This year, on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, July 24-26, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., EAA is prototyping a sales store in Camp Scholler where aircraft hardware, instruments, and other items not needed for the EAA Museum’s work are being sold to raise money to help the museum.
Chuck Parnall ramrods the effort for EAA and says all the items have been vetted by a committee within EAA to ensure they are not needed for anything the organization can forecast. “It’s a pretty significant process they go through to make sure it is not going to be of use to the museum,” Parnall says.

As of Sunday morning, the shop, tucked away in a part of the campground, had raised about $1,200 for EAA. A sign in the building tells customers a project that stands to benefit from this sale is the impending restoration of the chin turret on EAA’s B-17G Flying Fortress.

“The joy of doing this is that we’re putting something back to use,” Parnall says. “The type of people we are getting are the core of what EAA is all about,” he adds.

He sees people who are just happy to be at AirVenture 2010, not complaining about the wet grounds, and willing to offer constructive suggestions on identifying stray parts and their value.

Unmarked items may be purchased with a donation— and Parnall says donors have been generous.

When pricing surplus items to sell, Parnall explains he tries to balance the ticket somewhere under market value while still netting reasonable funds for the EAA Museum’s benefit.

The surplus shop, which closes at 2 p.m. today, is an experiment that may grow next year, Parnall says.

And if an R-1830 engine isn’t to your liking, there’s always a pair of R-2600s that once powered one of the B-25s in the movie Catch-22. Make ’em an offer.