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Ultra rare Eddy war Kite for sale!
A very old, very rare kite, dating back from as far as the mid 1890’s is up for sale on ebay. The seller has put it up for auction with a starting price of $2,500.00. This is one of only four known specimens in the world and is in excellent condition. We were so intrigued about this rare kite; we did some research into it.The Eddy war kite was designed by William Eddy in the 1890’s. It was used for scientific purposes like recording wind velocity, temperatures and taking aerial photographs. Perhaps more interestingly it was used by the military for surveillance. During the Spanish- American war in 1898 Eddy used his kite to take photographs. These were the first wartime surveillance in history and provided critical information to American troops about their adversaries' positions and fortifications, hence the name war kite.
The kite was inspired by the Malay kite made four years before Eddy’s, the design of the Malay kite consists of two flexible cross sticks, diverging at right angles, to form a lozenge -like shape. The horizontal stick is preferably slightly longer than the vertical one. Once they have been bound together, a string or cord is tightened around the resulting lozenge. The design is then enveloped in the kite material, such as paper- which Eddy was a great fan of.
To make his kite better than the Malay he tried to fill in the missing details of the diamond shaped kite. In standard diamond kites the tail was needed for stabilization, but was problematic when chaining several kites in order to reach higher altitudes so Eddy decided to make his kite tail- less to avoid it getting tangled. He added a bow in the cross spar and a hole at the crossing of the sticks.
Bid for this kite now! Click here to go to ebay