Came across this attachments set during the Covid lockdown & bought it for the cams mainly. It also contained the Manual, dated 1958.
An unusual find in UK, but it has a story behind it, I discovered later: ) Concealed inside the box was a little silver brooch! See it above, beneath the black screwdriver. I know exactly what it is & I contacted the seller to let her know it was hidden in the box. In case it was a misplaced personal item, you know? Long story short she said it didn’t belong to her & that I could keep it & regard it as a lucky find! The box of accessories, along with a 403 machine, had belonged to an elderly relative who had long since passed away & she was passing them on to someone who would make use of them.
I didn’t find the brooch straight away, it was hidden inside that little compartment with a hole/cut out where the binder sits & it was only when I emptied the contents to photograph them that I realised the empty box was still rattling! Out came the brooch, which I believe had been deliberately hidden there. It was no accident.
Explaination goes back to the dark days of the Second World War when thousands of American Airmen were stationed in UK to take on the Luftwaffe just over the Channel. At the end of the war most of the Airmen went home. Some went home with their English girlfriends, or married, others must have had some emotional partings & I know that many Airmen gave their partners love tokens, keepsakes, before they left for home. The little brooch, with its propeller & wings, is an Airmans badge. They were called Sweethearts Brooches here. The lady owner of this 403 kept her token hidden in the box that eventually came to me. I don’t know if she ever married or not! How she came to own a 403, which is not common here, is interesting to speculate about…
I’ve never laid hands on, or even seen a 403, or a 301, or a Rocketeer, but I know what they are.