Clarence, thanks for the info. Now I understand. The facility book of her trip would be a great souvenir. Better than the gun as it could be autographed. I still wonder why she would give anything away or dump gear at Lae. If she completed the trip, as intended, anything she carried on the trip would be a valuable momento.
If you don't believe Balfour about the automatic pistol then is doesn't make any sense to believe him about the "facility book" or the other papers he said that she left behind.
Where did the idea come from that she left behind her life raft and other emergency equipment, like parachutes. All Balfour says she left behind were "all messages received from her were forwarded to her husband together with some private papers she left with me at the radio station, she also gave me her automatic pistol and ammunition and some radio facility books, but these I do not have now they became lost in the war." Nothing about parachutes, life rafts or very pistol. There is no mention of anything being left behind by either Collopy on Chater. Amelia wrote, "Fred and I have worked very hard in the last two days
repacking the plane and eliminating everything
nonessential. We have even discarded as much personal property as we can decently get along without and henceforth propose to travel lighter than ever before." Did Earhart consider her life raft, very pistol and parachutes "nonessential" prior to launching on an over ocean flight to a small island, with two additional oceanic legs after that one about 6,500 SM in all? That wouldn't make any sense to me. In fact I always did the exact opposite, I didn't carry a life raft flying over the U.S. but loaded one aboard before flying out over the ocean. This
IS common practice.