Sky-High Deals & Rare Aviation Finds | American Pickers | History

From rare collectibles to sky-high deals, these aviation finds are flying straight into history. See more in this compilation from American Pickers.

AJ: I’ve got some more stuff back here.
FRANK: Wow, look at all this.
MIKE: Oh my gosh.
AJ: Got a few Zeppelins.
MIKE: That’s what I was talking to you about before.
I said any time I see a Zeppelin, I usually try to buy it.
Holy moly.
AJ: There aren’t any left because I bought them all.
FRANK: You did.
MIKE: I see that.
FRANK: Wow.
MIKE (VOICEOVER): We’ve made it to AJ’s personal hangar.
FRANK: A lot of planes here, that’s for sure.
MIKE (VOICEOVER): He’s got steel pressed blimps, he’s got pedal planes.
This is his inner sanctum.
MIKE: Wow.
AJ: That’s my– my junkyard, bone yard.
FRANK: You know, I’m not a real big airplane guy, but airplanes are worth a lot of money.
AJ, what about this plane?
FRANK (VOICEOVER): One item that did catch my eye was a little Hubley airplane.
It’s cast iron, the wheels are original, it’s got the propeller.
AJ: It’s a good one.
How about $200?
$200, I’m happy with that.
FRANK: OK.
FRANK (VOICEOVER): It’s got the original paint.
It’s one of those pieces that’d be easy to sell.
Oh, here’s a 356.
What are you thinking?
$30.
All right, I’ll put it on my shelf.
I’ve got an old 356.
FRANK: So this is a Hubley Junior.
It says Harley Davidson on it.
It needs two tires on here.
It’s got the rims.
If it had the original tires on it, you know, this can realize $275, $300.
Well it is in great mechanical shape.
It’s not broken or blundered or damaged– No not at all.
I could do $200 on this.
– I think $200 is fair. – OK.
[inaudible] OK.
MIKE: Now, did you restore any of these?
AJ: No I didn’t.
I bought them.
But that one obviously is original paint.
AJ: That’s an original one there.
FRANK: That is incredible.
MIKE: Completely original, down to the tires and the belt.
See that, Frankie?
Look, it’s got the original belt on it.
FRANK: Oh, yeah.
MIKE: See that?
AJ: Yeah, that’s an incredible piece.
MIKE: Yeah.
It’s got the Spirit of St. Louis on the back of it.
MIKE (VOICEOVER): Charles Lindbergh was a world famous celebrity.
In 1927, he piloted the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris.
Lindbergh’s flight introduced the era of modern aviation.
Suddenly, Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis was everywhere.
Anything that you could put Lindbergh’s name or the plane’s name on, they did it.
Anything from board games, to bicycles, to pedal planes.
The beauty of this pedal plane is that it’s completely untouched.
It’s original paint.
Every inch of it has never been messed with.
MIKE: Wood and metal mixed together.
I’ve never seen another one like it.
It says Gendron Plane, 2,200.
That’s what I paid for it.
MIKE: Yeah.
MIKE (VOICEOVER): This was an extremely expensive, very elaborate gift to give to a child back then.
Imagine the kid pedaling as fast as he can, with the propeller going, down the sidewalk, thinking that they were going to take off.
This was an exciting time for America and the world.
Can I make you an offer on this plane?
That’s my favorite plane.
The others you can– I know, it’s the only original paint one.
You can take three others, but– It’s the only original paint one.
Throw a number at me, let’s see how– $3,200.
It’s too nice to let go.
MIKE: Right now, I’m considering this plane worth $4,000 to $4,200 to the right person, because it’s so clean, it’s so original, it’s so cool.
Pieces of this quality and this condition very rarely come up for sale, and he knows that.
$3,500 on this.
All right, let’s think about this for a while.
MIKE: Let’s think about this.
What else we got here?
What else can we put in the pile here?
MIKE: How much is this row?
MIKE (VOICEOVER): I’m looking at his pressed steel plane collection.
The toy planes.
Very large, some are trimotors.
Very hard stuff to find, and some are in better condition than others.
So I choose three planes.
Hopefully, this will sweeten it up a little bit.
OK how about this?
So if I pay $3,500 for the pedal plane, If you do these two tri-power planes– the yellow one and the silver one– for $1,000.
And that one, for the Lockheed Cirrus– AJ: The white one?
For five– that’s $5,000.
I’d do $5,000.
All right, I can do that.
FRANK: Yep.
We got there together.
MIKE: So when I first got here today, I saw all of the toys, and I’m thinking to myself, this is going to be a Frank pick.
But after walking around and checking all this stuff out, Frank will always be toy guy one, but now I’m toy guy two.
I’m gonna have you put yours in first.
AJ: You know, I’ve collected these things for a lot of years, and collecting is the biggest part of collecting.
Finding them, buying them, whatever.
And then you put them away and you forget about it, and you go buy something else.
FRANK: AJ, Thank you for everything.
Yeah, thank you guys.
We appreciate it.
AJ: And I’ve collected a lot of this stuff to have in my later years, and sell them and pass them on to other people.
And so I’m there now.
– Thanks AJ. – See ya, buddy.
See ya. Thanks.
[Mike] Oh, this place is huge!
Oh, wow.
[speaks indistinctly] Oh my gosh.
Wow. What year is the trailer?
It’s a 1947 Curtiss-Wright trailer designed by Wally Byam.
[Mike] Wally Byam was the mastermind and creator of Airstream trailers. But when World War II started, he shut down Airstream. Curtiss-Wright had three things going for it. One, it had the skill. Two, it had the material. And three, it had the employees. What they needed was Wally Byam to help ’em with the design.
[Rafe] It’s 20 feet long, overall.
[Robbie] This looks all original in the inside.
[Rafe] It is pretty original.
[Mike] Wally Byam designed trailers for a very short time for Curtiss-Wright before he opened Airstream again. So this is unbelievable. Very cool.
-So you gonna sell this? -No, not so much.
I would like to restore it ’cause my big dream is to, uh, drive it around Canada and the U.S.
No kidding? That’s a great dream.
With a vintage, uh, 1947 truck.
-Oh, wow. -Or a woodie.
It’s been quite a big effort to keep all of this and it is expensive to keep it. Come on back. Let me show you an airplane here.
[Mike] Okay.
-Oh, wow, man! -Wow.
Look at the engine on that, Robbie!
Look at that radial engine.
[Rafe] This is an all-original 1930 airplane that came from San Bernardino.
It was last flown just before Pearl Harbor.
And when Pearl Harbor was bombed, civilian flying on the West Coast was banned.
So this stayed in a hangar the whole war and never flew again.
So I saw this for the very first time when the owner took me back and we were always going to refinish it and…
I desperately wanted to take him flying in it one last time.
Well, unfortunately, he got cancer and died.
But he left it to me.
-Really? -Oh, wow.
So half of the people love it just the way it is.
The engine has bright yellow oil.
It’s got new compression.
Uh, and it basically– -So basically no hours on it? -[Rafe] Very few.
They made three of these at the factory in Los Angeles.
-All they made was three? -Only three.
At the end of World War I, the American government sold surplus Jenny airplanes. The old Jennies were big and kind of clunky and people wanted smaller, faster, more sporty airplanes. And Populair was built in 1930 and answered that call. Unfortunately, the Populair came on right at the beginning of the Depression and the big stock market crash. So the company failed in 1931 or ’32 after just manufacturing three airplanes.
The one that I have is the only remaining of the three. To find something like this, unmolested, I mean is…
-as it was. -[Mike] Oh my gosh. Amazing.
I think the last registration up in the front cockpit is dated, uh, 1938.
I love that logo on the side. What does that say?
[Rafe] It says “Populair,” which is the name of it, and then it says “Earl Aviation Corporation.” [Mike] Dang, this is so cool.
So you said you’ve known about this plane since 1969.
Right, it’s the first– So did your dad know about this plane too?
No, he didn’t know anything about it.
My dad had a photo processing plant and I had a camera, I mean, at a very early age, I don’t know, maybe five or six years old. It was just magical.
I never wanted to be like a portrait photographer or anything like that.
I mean the airplane things really interested me.
I started going to the Reno Air Races. And I was sitting in the media trailer and a man came in in a suit and he asked me if I had the pictures of the four winning airplanes. And I said yes. He gives me his card and it was from J. Walter Thompson in New York, the manager of the Champion spark plug account. -[Mike] Wow. -That was the door.
-Yeah. -And I got through the door.
Then I met the Snowbirds up in Canada in 1980, flew with them, did not get sick. This is one of my signature pictures with the team that Kodak reproduced…
-Oh my gosh. -…in a poster.
And I’m in a tenth jet. Shot on Kodachrome.
-[Mike] Wow. -And this lasted for 33 years.
Oh my gosh!
[Mike] This was Rafe’s moment. Everything that he ever did added up to a brilliant career and a 33-year gig. Would you even consider selling this?
I-I-I would.
I mean, I want it to go to a good home.
I-I would consider, yes.
Like the person I’m thinking of, I’m thinking of Rick.
So this guy’s got a museum and it’s a motorcycle museum but it’s really evolving more into transportation. So he’s got like a lot of cars and all these things but he’s built these massive buildings and he mentioned to us probably, I don’t know, a year ago, he was wanting a plane.
I think it would be preserved the way it is now.
Yes, I think that… I think that would be outstanding.
So if I could take some pictures of it.
Sure, let’s do it.
We are huge fans of Legends Motorcycle Museum in Springville, Utah.
Over the years, we’ve sold Rick a number of things that are on display in the museum. This will be, by far, the largest piece that we’ve ever connected him with. -I’ll send him all this. -Oh, excellent.
Transportation history covers anything from airplanes to automobiles to bicycles to motorcycles. He’s always understood that all those things are connected.
[phone line ringing] -[Rick] Hello? -Hey. Get pics of that plane?
-[Rick] Yeah. -I know. The thing’s insane.
[Rick] I like it. So do you remember, about a year ago, when you told my brother and I that you were looking for an airplane?
-[Rick] I do. -Okay.
So now this is that moment that we found you an airplane.
[laughs] And we’re callin’ to see if you want it.
[Rafe] It was made in Los Angeles, um, Rick, in 1930.
There were three of them made.
It’s a two-seat biplane.
It’s got a seven-cylinder Warner Scarab Junior.
Think it’s 115 horse.
Nice wooden propeller.
It’s olive drab-colored fuselage with yellow wings.
-Yeah. -What do you want for it? Well, I’m looking for 35.
[Rick] And it’s a complete airplane, ready to hang? It’s a complete airplane, ready to hang.
That’s right. Um…
-It’s pretty cool, buddy. -It is.
It would look amazing in your museum.
[Rick] And I’ve been looking for an airplane to hang in there for the last three or four years. Well, this is a pretty unique one, for sure.
[Rick] Seems like it’s got some history behind it. I’d be interested in it. If you can help line somebody up that would load it up and get it to Utah, -I would buy it. -Okay.
Well, let me get to work on it and see what we can do.
All right, Rick, I’m gonna put you in contact with each other.
And I’m– Hey, congratulations, man.
-It’s a really cool piece. -It does look nice. -I know, right? It’s nuts! -It’s mind-blowing.
It is. It’s mind-blowing.
Hey, if I had, I don’t know, 20 feet more in my ceiling, I’d buy it. [laughs] Thank you, buddy.
I think the Populair will be a great addition to Rick’s museum in Utah. I’m just glad we were able to put these two together.
This is perfect for Rafe. Now he has the room to do what he wants to in his building. And that’s a huge thing. That’s one of the reasons he called. [car horn honks] See you! See you, Rafe!
-Bye-bye! -[Robbie] Thank you!
It’s in the office because it’s cracked.
And we don’t have it on display because we don’t want it to get broken anymore.
Oh, no.
There you go.
There you go.
Arab Aviation.
Have you seen that one before?
I’ve never seen it.
What do we got underneath this?
Do you have the other lens for it?
Supposedly, it’s in the building.
But I have never seen it.
OK.
I’ve been collecting gas and oil for over 35 years.
Any time you can put aviation on a globe and the word Texas, it means the number’s going up.
Is this something you’d sell?
Sure.
I have no idea what it would be worth, but– I’ve never seen it before.
If you don’t mind, can I take a picture of it?
I got a guy that I deal with that would know more about it.
Sure.
Yeah.
I mean, we want to be able to give you as much as we can for stuff because I feel like it’s going to a great cause, you know?
I really believe in a lot of these small town museums.
This is hands-on history for kids when they come in here.
Gas and oil collectibles, or what we call petroliana, has been hot for a very long time.
So imagine, all of these years, people that collect this stuff have been on the back roads, shaking the bushes, trying to find anything related to it.
You would think that by now, all of it had been found.
So what did you find out on the phone?
Here’s the deal.
It’s a great piece.
But if we find the other panel, it’s like, mega, so– All right.
So get to lookin’.
We’re trying to find the needle in the haystack.
So we’re gonna have to do some due diligence and actually dig through every one of these boxes.
Hopefully we can find the other lens.
OK.
I’m gonna leave you guys here for a little bit to dig.
And I’m gonna run upstairs and check on some things.
And I’ll be back.
[music playing] We know it’s not that, a box of dresses.
[cackles] My heart is pounding so fast when I uncover that lens.
I’m just hoping that I don’t break it.
I can’t stand touching glass.
I found it!
I found it!
What shape’s it in?
It’s not broke.
Guess what?
Terry, where you at?
Holy crap, you found it.
I know.
I’ve been with the museum for eight years.
And I don’t remember ever seeing it.
Yeah.
Pretty cool.
It’s like Cinderella gas globe.
Fits perfectly.
So I called my guy.
And he lives here in Texas.
He said, if we could find the extra lens– which we did– he said he would pay $8,000 for these two lenses.
Really?
He’s probably the biggest gas globe collector– Serious?
Yes.
To find out that it was valued at $8,000 for the pair, it was pretty surprising, or shocking, maybe, even.
But here’s the kicker.
Mike and I talked about it downstairs.
It’s not about us making money here, OK?
This is about you guys surviving in this economy that’s going on. – Right.
We bought enough stuff here to where we feel like we can make some money.
This is something that we don’t feel like we have to make any money on, because this guy’s in Texas.
He’s passionate about these.
Because it has a connection to a family here, would there be a way to reproduce this so we would have one of these here at the museum to keep on display?
So we can have something like this reproduced.
We’ll photograph it, you know?
And then there’s a company that does that.
Robbie and I’ll take care of that.
Yeah.
OK.
And– and then the other guy’s gonna come here and pay.
He’s gonna come here and pay.
I say let’s go for it.
You gonna do it?
I want to do it.
All right. That’s awesome.
That’s awesome.
Sounds great.
That’s great.
God bless Texas, my friend.
– Yeah. – All right.
Let’s load some stuff up.
I really appreciate you what they did.
Mike talks about the museum in his hometown.
And he knows how museums struggle.
So for them to do that for us just meant a lot to us.
All right.
Is the last of ’em.
There we go.
Small town museums preserve more than just the items inside.
They are essential in cultivating pride for a community, passing on local culture, and sharing heritage.
Man, it’s been a great day.
These museums need to be moved into the future and not left behind.
On the lenses, there was no decision to be made.
It was simply the right thing to do.
See you, Buddy!
See ya!
Woo!
The only thing that I can’t believe is that you found it and not me.
I learned from the best.
I learned from you.
I love you, too.
I love you too, man.
Seriously. – Love you too.
That was a good day, man.
I know.
I feel good about that.
Look at that sunset.
All right.
MIKE WOLFE: This is awesome.
I love this kind of stuff.
There’s a few dies over here, I saw, too.
KIM: OK, let’s go look.
Let me show you those real quick.
As a picker, you have to think out of the box.
So I’m looking for anything on this property that I can repurpose.
Right over here, I grabbed a pile.
Look at that.
Looks like a little– little tiger face.
This is a really neat Indian.
I love that. KIM: Yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: I think I can repurpose them into something cool, something clever, something different.
And then, here is a skull with wings.
KIM: Right. Yep.
I thought that was really awesome.
If somebody just wants a really cool piece that’s interesting on a shelf, this is it.
[rock music] This is an interesting one, just because it’s so big Mm-hmm.
“American Master Ladies Hairdressers Association”.
[laughs] MIKE WOLFE: But look at the side of her head– KIM: Oh, yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: –with, like, a flower, or something.
KIM: Right. Right.
MIKE WOLFE: I thought that was interesting.
KIM: Yeah, that’s a weird hairdo.
And then this, I thought, was really cool.
I found this in a drawer. KIM: Oh, yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: “Coney Island–” KIM: “Coney Island–” MIKE WOLFE: –“Watchman”. KIM: That’s awesome.
MIKE WOLFE: That’s really cool. KIM: Yeah.
And then this one is really cool, because it’s an airplane.
Yep.
And if you notice, you can barely read in it, it says, “Curtiss”. KIM: Right.
Right. MIKE WOLFE: OK.
So Glenn Curtiss, he was in Hammondsport, New York, and he was one of the fathers of aviation.
To me, Curtiss is right up there with the Wright brothers.
This guy was a bicycle racer.
Then he made motorcycles.
And then he made airplane engines.
I mean, this guy is one of my heroes.
He was a genius.
Aviation stuff is red hot and extremely collectible.
So what are you thinking on these?
It sounds like you sold a few of these before.
I have. I have.
MIKE WOLFE: OK.
KIM: I sold them anywhere from $20 bucks to $300.
The hairdresser one, $30 bucks.
– I’ll do $30 on that one. – OK, that’s hairdresser.
Mm-hmm.
And the tiger is, what? $35?
Let’s go with $40.
[laughs] All right.
And then Glenn Curtis.
KIM: Well, Curtiss, we’re going with $100.
MIKE WOLFE: All right.
I’ll do that.
Early aviation stuff is hard to find.
And I like the fact that it’s Curtiss.
Right. Right.
MIKE WOLFE: And then the skull with the wings, I mean– KIM: Well, you love that one. MIKE WOLFE: Yeah.
KIM: So I should push it. MIKE WOLFE: $50.
– I was thinking, like, $75. – Woo.
What?
That’s the one you love the best.
How about $60?
Let’s go $65.
– All right. – You love it.
$65.
And then I’ve got one more here, the Indian.
To me, he’s $60 cool.
OK. We’ll do that.
OK.
Again, what are you thinking on the Coney Island badge?
I like the Coney Island badge quite a bit, so– OK.
Like, how much is quite a bit?
I would be at $100 with the Coney Island badge.
All right.
I’m a hot dog guy. I gotta have it.
– OK. – All right.
Very cool.
Hey, Kim, how about this little guy here?
KIM: Yeah.
FRANK FRITZ: It looks like a marksman.
KIM: It does. FRANK FRITZ: See?
It’s got the bull’s eye.
It’s got the double guns.
$10 bucks. – $20.
All right.
You got it.
[cha-ching] I pulled this out from underneath here.
Wow.
MIKE WOLFE: Today in the big box store mentality, when everything is being made overseas, it’s important to preserve and repurpose a lot of this stuff.
So there’s anything from wrestling– here’s a boat.
Oh, look at that, punchball, 1928.
KIM: I like a lot of those. – I know.
I do, too.
The artwork is really pretty.
MIKE WOLFE: I don’t know why I liked them, but they spoke to me.
KIM: You know, you can buff some of this stuff up, too, and it looks good.
Here’s my question to you.
Would you just sell the bin?
KIM: The whole bin?
Like, I have two stores.
So a lot of stuff in here is $5 bucks.
Some could be $20 bucks. $800 bucks.
We’re selling by the pound. KIM: Yeah.
[laughs] Frank’s over there buying by the piece.
I was like, why by it by the piece, if you can buy it by the pound? KIM: Uh, yeah.