Collecting is a Ball Vol.2 Captain Lang’s Gear

Last week I wrote an article on WorthPoint/GoAntiques about the top 10 items on the site that our users were viewing/searching. Getting into what we people collect is always a cool experience and is like going through someone’s personal life. It is a portal into the person, so to speak. I love, as a buyer, going through estates and seeing what people saved/collected, as it helps me understand their life. Seeing what people are looking at online is also an interesting experience, as you see what people collect or are interested in. I guess I like this because, as a dealer, it is helpful to me and my business.

One of the… well, many of the top items surprised me, although if one takes a look at the broader areas of collecting they fall into, it should not be a surprise. The item I will specifically discuss was an F-4 Phantom jet pilot’s seat. I am not sure what I would do with one if I found it, although there are quite a few in our WorthPoint data base. Thinking a little broader, these jets were a workhorse of the Vietnam War, and good Vietnam militaria is very hot at the moment and in great demand, especially by European collectors.

Several weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be able to purchase an entire Vietnam War-era U.S. pilot’s uniform and accoutrements. Besides being attracted to this period of military history (items are still relatively plentiful), I was attracted to the quantity this pilot had saved in regards to his gear. I think this was because he kept flying into the 1980s, when he met his untimely death in an air show flying a Phantom. Subsequently, his wife was eager to get rid of the lot and its associated memories, so she sold his entire group of “stuff” to the hoarder/picker who was my source. My source was eager to start unloading his items, as his wife had ordered him to start parting with some items (NOTE: Spouses are often “defining” reasons/motivators in collectors’ lives).

This seller had moved his “inventory” out of his house and into a friend’s warehouse. Going through the inventory, I could not help but notice these trunks of Vietnam War-era gear. The more I dug, the more I found. There also was a 15-pound box of photos. I made a deal with Ron, the picker, to buy all of the gear. Given I like to buy when I can find good stuff, I also negotiated for a trunk of another deceased pilot’s WW II letters and flying clothes.

I barely fit my haul into the car. I often take my kids with me on buying trip, but I was lucky I was flying solo this time, as there would not have been room for them for the return trip. Once I got home, my next mission was to explain about these trunks full of items to my wife or quietly slide them into the garage with my other crates of inventory, where they could hide in plain sight. I headed for the garage.

Over the last two weeks I have been selling the Vietnam material. While I like gear from the period, I never had dealt with it much. I found out that the material sells very well, and that backs up the volume of searches in January on WorthPoint for the pilot’s F-4 seat and other Vietnam War items.

The pilot who had had worn the gear was Capt. Bob Lang. Bob was a special pilot and a modern day ace. He flew with the infamous “Wild Weasels” squadron, and later another squadron called the “Iron Knights.” Both these groups were famous for flying tens of thousands of sorties with F-4 Phantoms and F-105 Thunderchiefs over North Vietnam. I pieced much of this information together with Google, with the help of the thousands of photos that Bob left for us to look at.

The more I researched, the more I became very familiar with Bob’s life and past. I would guess that Bob’s father was a pilot by looking at Bob’s early youth pictures. Bob went to the University of Miami and then appeared to follow in his dad’s footsteps. He went right into the military after school and his air unit was quickly sent to Vietnam. Bob’s squadrons were merged and he moved to different units in the four-to-six years he spent in Vietnam. He was with two different Weasel squadrons and then was sent to the Royal Ubon Thai base when the war was ended in 1975. He was then transferred to Germany, where he stayed for at least six years, and finally came back to the States and flew training and air support prior to his crash. All this could be told by what he left.

While researching Bob’s life, I became very close to him, handling the gear and selling it off. I also learned a lot more about military collectors and what they collect. It was interesting, and also will point back to my earlier comments that building a collection is often more about focus than having a lot of money.

Here is some elaboration on some of the things I sold and what the buyers were collecting:

Pilot’s Actual Uniform Parts: These by far were the most expensive, but still very affordable. The research and documentation I did paid off. The pilot’s jump suit, with his embroidered name and his “Weasel” squadron unit patch and Thunderchief shoulder patch, sold for $325 His two helmet visors—painted with unit insignia—went for several hundred dollars each. Most of these items were off to France.

A collector that collects items from the “Iron Knights” spent about $1,000. He purchased items in all price ranges, but he was only interested in the Knights. That was the squadron Bob was in when he was transferred to Germany following the war. The collector bought photos for as little as $3 each, squadron coffee mugs, and a pilot visor (the visor and helmets were made popular in the Star Wars saga, as these are what the rebel forces wore in the 1978 movie in a Galaxy Far, Far Away).

Someone bought an F-4 oxygen mask and hose assembly for what I thought was a steep $175. I guess the question is where to find another, and it is cheaper and easier to display than a pilot’s seat, which sell for thousands of dollars.

Other collecting areas of interest I came across from people that collected were:

• Squadron and unit patches: These can sell from a couple of dollars on up into the hundreds of dollars. Buyers need to be very careful, as reproductions proliferate. One collector was looking for sewn name tags of fliers stationed in Germany. That is a focused collector.
• Another collector was a firefighter from North Dakota who collected survival knives. These were often tied to the uniform, by thongs. He knew Capt. Lang would have been issued one and he bought it for a little more than $100.
• Then there was the collector in Italy who did not have a lot of money, but bought a $1 wool stocking hat.
• The last request I got was for the pilot’s wings if they had the unusual feature of having his name engraved on the reverse. That is the only thing this buyer would buy and they are very rare. But I thought they were too special to sell. I gave those to my younger son, along with the Captain’s flight jacket. My goal here was two fold: 1) To start another generation on collecting and 2) keep another generation remembering the Vietnam War, which is heavily engraved in my memory with too many bad personal stories.

It snowed in Atlanta a weekend ago and my son took the jacket out to wear in a snowball fight. He loved it as it kept him very warm and dry! Which ties in to my last comment: Don’t live in a museum. Some collectibles are supposed to be used! While the purist collector may cringe, I am sure the Captain would have smiled about my son using his combat jacket 36 years later in a snowball fight.

This is a link to the article I wrote on what people were looking at last month on WorthPoint.

www.worthpoint.com/article/top-10-worthopedia-searches-january-2010

Will Seippel is the president and CEO of WorthPoint.com. Will has been an avid collector since 1974 and dealer of just about all things—with an emphasis on ephemera—antiques since 1984.

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