Warbird Information Exchange

Wow! So I'm watching the American Pickers on the History Channel tonight and in the preview to the show they are walking by the Mosquito, P-38, etc. I wonder what the museum will let them pick, if anything!

Very cool seeing warbirds on TV!

You just beat me to the punch- saw the same thing- there next stop after the commercial break.

I'll share the post with you!

I just saw it as well. Very cool. It piqued my interest. Is the sale of EAA "overstock" they were discussing a future event, or a past event? Anyone know?

Paging Zach, paging Zach...

They had an overstock sale at Airventure 2012.

EAA has had a "surplus" sale for the past few years now. The items they bought were things that were already for sale for the most part, so the "picking" was staged just a bit.

Zack

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Curator - EAA Aviation Museum, Oshkosh, WI
"Let No Story Go Untold!"
http://www.timelessvoices.org

Zack, What sort of items do they offer up for sale?

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"If that's a goddamn 'Jug' in front of me, you sure as hell better wiggle your wings." 80FS/8FG Cape Gloucester, December 1943. And the entire 41st Fighter Squadron rocked their wings.

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR P-38 PARTS

Watch the episode... They have all kinds of stuff...... Looks like it was shot as everyone was setting up for the airshow.....

I see it cutting 2 ways.... Danielle, makes it sound like "ITS HARD TO FIND THE EAA", Punch EAA into GOOGLE and see how much comes up... (69 MILLION HITS.... First happens to be EAA.Org).....

They make it sound like they are getting some kind of exclusive, which they are.....

I think that the selling prices were more than fair, and represented something JUST under what I would call retail... I think that all the ESTIMATED values were really inflated. The problem is that those values makes the EAA LOOK like they are giving things away that were donated to the EAA, or selling them off as "junk". Hence people may be reluctant to donate to the EAA in the future (assuming they see and remember this episode)...

Of course the show is set up. They've been to our area twice and its been a setup from the word go.....

Of course I've watched some episodes of PAWNSTARS (been there several times), its a normal pawnshop, nothing special, some higher end stuff, but no smoking deals there. I was there before the show started, talked to the old man, he was such an a$$ that he blew any chance of me buying a Rolex there.....

Read a few posts about them on other sites (one person recognized one of the people there as an actor), I'm sure what they bring in is preselected and screened. I do know their "Blue Angels pilot" probably knows more about flying than he does about airplane values. I have heard that the airplane and helicopter they bought were set ups.... (who can restore a helicopter that fast?).

Been to HARDCORE PAWN in Detroit once (going to Thunder and took a side trip). Must have been there on an off day, it was about empty (and the showroom was 10+x as large as Pawnstars), didn't see any of the antics you see on the show. If they were like that in real life, nobody would be back..... So its all a set up...

Its all low level entertainment to say the least. Overall, in 2 weeks 99% of the people who saw it will forget it...

Mark H

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Fly safe or you get to meet me .......

Its all about "good t.v.", and what people are willing to watch!!!

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A&P/I.A., A.A.S./Aviation Maintenance technology
Warbird salvage/recovery
One day I'll get that P-40!

Forget all that- how would the WIX reality show look? I'd personally like to see Jerry Springer "resolving" paint, maintenance, and historical issues between certain current and former members here.... But only for historical sake!

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

They sure took a bath on the Henderson 4cyl motorcycle engine...

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Those who possess real knowledge are rare.

Those who can set that knowledge into motion in the physical world are rarer still.

The few who possess real knowledge and can set it into motion of their own hands are the rarest of all.

I saw the episode as well and thought about creating a thread on the subject, but luckily decided to view all the previous threads first and found this one.

American Pickers is one of the last few "real" history shows on "History" (It's no longer "The History Channel" if you notice.), or at least one of the few that comes close to it.

On the website for the show they have a page where you can submit tips of locations for them to go and "pick". A while back I used this function to send them information on the Soplata farm; so naturally when someone told me that they were going to a place with airplanes, the hopeful anticipation was killing me that they had actually read and followed through on my suggestion. A little bit of wishful thinking on my part. I figured touring the collection would be a perfect fit for the show although I wouldn't actually expect them to be able to purchase anything - and I made sure to note this in the e-mail. Looking back, I doubt the Soplata family would ever agree to the show doing an episode there. Oh well, at least I tried.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but IMHO the EAA agreed to the show just for the publicity value, I doubt they really expected to make much money off the purchases. Why else have Mr. Skiles be the host?

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

Jeff Skiles is the EAA VP of Chapters and Youth Education. The AirVenture Museum falls under him, and at the time this segment was filmed, we were still looking for a new museum director, so it made sense to have Jeff represent the museum on the show. Say what you want, the show has resulted in a lot of great publicity for the museum and organization.

Zack

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Curator - EAA Aviation Museum, Oshkosh, WI
"Let No Story Go Untold!"
http://www.timelessvoices.org

Reality TV is an oxymoron. It's more like "scripted reality".

We had an episode of Georgetown Cupcake filmed at our facility. I was dealing with the producer on the logistics. They asked me where our kitchen was. I pointed it out, on the same level of our studio floor. Instead, they decided it would make better TV if they had to bring the cupcakes down the flight of stairs from one of our lofts. I always suspected reality shows were b.s., once this confirmed it, I had little use for any of them, with the exception of "Pickers". Even though I do believe everything on Pickers is scripted, too, the stuff they find is still interesting. It's also one of the shows where you can tune in during middle and not be completely lost.

Yes, all of these reality tv shows are staged. I've had several of my friends end up on American Pickers. The pickers have a list of items for sale and prices long before they come in. A friend of mine and myself hauled an old Model A Ford roadster out of a backyard and my buddy sold it to the Fast and Loud jerks. I know 100% for sure that is staged. We put the car in the back of my friends shop and piled junk on top of it for dramatic effect for the cameras. The car was bought and paid for weeks before they showed up to film. The guys that do the firearm evaluations of on Pawn Stars are getting a spin off show. The producers called me to "pick" my stash of old military and aircraft junk. They wanted a list of what you have and they said that they would most likely pretend to buy stuff from me and that they would have a pretend auction where they sale the items that were "bought" from me even though they were just borrowing them. I was a "picker" in the 1990's for Six Flags Amusement parks. The TV shows have made all the prices go through the roof for garbage that people assume is a jewel because of what they saw on TV that was similar, in better condition, over priced and totally different. I have no love for reality TV----unless of course they give me a show. Then reality TV is great.

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The nose art/aviation artist and general lunatic from Houston, Texas http://www.jasonbarnettartist.com