A gentleman has contacted me as after a clear out of his father's barn he has found an unfitted Fairey Duckling in original unused condition. It is stamped 1582 and we believe 2000 were manufactured. It has been stored in a dry barn for the last 50 years.
Apparently because it was unfitted, just a shell, they called it an "egg" because it wasn't yet a Duckling!
if you are interested contact me in the first instance but the "egg" will need to be collected from postcode L40 which is half way between Liverpool and Preston.
I have conferred with our esteemed Archivist and need to set the record straight...
Charles Lawrence knows of no reference to numbers and the concept of 2000 Ducklings is dubious!
The stamped number 1582 is the way Fairey Marine recorded the WPO - Works Production Order, which don’t even work chronologically.
Certainly the individual bigger boats had an individual WPO, but it was also used for groups of boats, so that if a club ordered say six Fireflies they would all have the same WPO and have no relation to hull numbers.
Charles suspects 1582 dates from the very early '50s - the first Huntresses started at around 5750. (H28 Hull number 94’s WPO is 6546)
Anyway I am pleased to say there has been some interest shown in this unique (in that it is untouched) bit of Fairey history.
