In 2000, the team had an unexpected and generous surprise. A member of the Wright family, Marianne Hudec, loaned them an old propeller that had been hanging on their den wall. The propeller's "1904" painted on the hub and accompanying tag written by Orville Wright identified it as one of the propellers used in the brothers' 1904 flight tests. (Orville also noted on the tag the shrinkage of the hub over time.)

One of the images collected during the research on the propellers was this photograph taken before the Wright's first public flight in Reims, France in 1908. The picture shows the plane from the rear, the propellers clearly visible.
Image credit: Wright State University

Further inspection of the propeller revealed other unusual features: a glue repair which had left a shiny spot on one blade, and a fabric covering on a crack on one of the tips.

One of the team recalled noticing a shiny spot on one propeller in the 1908 photo. Looking again, the shiny spot was in the same place as the 1904 propeller, and the repaired tip matched up as well. But the prop had 1904 painted on it and the picture was taken in 1908!
Image credit: Wright State University

The team's suspicions that the two propellers were the same were confirmed when a French graduate student researching the papers of Leon Bollee discovered a press account stating, "Mr. Wright took with him from U.S.A. three pairs of propellers of different breadths. Yesterday, he took off from his airplane the more narrow propellers- The ones that he used up to now to do his experiments and to win the aviation committee prize." This proved that the propeller from the den and the one in the picture were the same! Now the team had not only an original propeller to study, but had discovered its direct responsibility for the Wrights' first public success!