Sold – A Stunning Signed Photograph of Amelia Earhart in Her Lockheed Vega Aircraft

In 1935, while her Lockheed Vega was under repairs at Lockheed Aircraft, officials at that company requested that the world’s most famous woman aviator pose for some publicity photographs. Earhart agreed, and Lockheed’s best photographer, Joe Washburn, received the assignment. He took about a dozen shots, a number of them so good that they have become classics; one was used on the Amelia Earhart stamp issued by the U.S. postal service. Washburn was naturally pleased with his work and had Earhart sign one copy of each of the photographs for himself. He then placed them in a scrapbook where they remained for 60 years.

More than a decade ago Washburn died, and we purchased the entire scrapbook from his estate at that time. We had sold only two to private sources when all of the rest were purchased and donated to an aviation museum. Recently one of the initial two found its way back to the market, and we quickly availed ourselves of the opportunity to again obtain it.

An 8 by 10 inch black and white photograph of Earhart, right from Washburn’s scrapbook, showing her in the door of her Lockheed Vega, the same aircraft in which she made a number of historic flights, signed by her. Washburn told friends an interesting, related story. He claimed it was well known at Lockheed that Earhart was having an affair with another aviator, Paul Mantz (who was known as the King of the Hollywood Pilots). Mantz had trained Earhart in long range flight and navigation, and told her she wasn’t ready for her final (and fatal) flight. However, the story goes, she was pushed into it by her publicity-hungry husband, George Putnam.