Artcurial will sell more than 200 lots of personal effects belonging to Jean Mermoz, the pioneering French aviator, on Tuesday 3 November in Paris. The collection, held together by relatives on the pilot's maternal side, includes flight logs, photographs of Lebanon and Syria, a parachute, a lock of hair, drawings and a leather aviator's coat, with individual estimates ranging from 100 to 12,000 euros. The items went on public exhibition on 30 October ahead of the sale.

Auctioneer Maxence Miglioretti described the assembly as exceptional because the material had remained together rather than being dispersed over time. A long leather aviator's coat is displayed alongside a life-size photograph of the pilot. Mermoz was raised by his mother after her divorce from his father and stayed close to her throughout his career, and the sale's most personal material is dozens of private letters addressed to her, in which he wrote about his illnesses, his romantic life and his emotional state.

Born in Aubenton in 1901, Mermoz flew for Latécoère, the predecessor of Aéropostale, and became one of France's most celebrated early aviators as well as a colleague and friend of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He vanished over the Atlantic in December 1936, and the letters in the sale trace his experiences up to his disappearance. Jean-Claude Nivet of the Latécoère foundation described the gathering of the letters and objects as emotional, and Frédéric Robert, who has studied the material, said the records let researchers move beyond standard biographies and historical documentation to reach the pilot's intimate life.