Tag: convention

[Bob Redfern] Welcome to Military Collectors this week.
Folks, we are in Louisville Kentucky at the Military Vehicle Preservation Association’s National Convention.
I’ve got a lot of great guests this week.
A lot on tap.
Military Collectors is going to go through this museum and this display like you’ve never seen before, right here on Military Collectors.
[Music]
Well folks, joining me now is the new president of the MVPA the Military Vehicle Preservation Association is Tom Clark from Canada.
A 30-year member and now the new president of this great organization here.
Tom, I’ve got thank you very much for being on the show today and, you know, I really want to emphasize your emphasis about what you as the new president want to do coming in to take over this great organization.
So, tell us all out there what what is your focus?
[Tom] Well, the primary focus, I’m really excited about the role and the responsibility is being president and also being a Canadian representing an international group such as the MVPA.
Being involved with a hobby for 30 years, and one of them, I think, our greatest challenges is growing the hobby and adding new members and reaching down to our next generation, the younger generation.
Getting them interested in the hobby as well.
So, that’s, that’s our primary focus right now is, is membership growth and developing the hobby being more inclusive versus exclusive.
Want to include groups such as model builders who can afford a model, maybe not some of the bigger models that you see here but some of the smaller models but also re-enactors and other interest groups and veterans groups.
Anybody who wants to be involved with us, we’re just opening the door for them now.
[Bob] Well, I have to ask you, you know, and we too want to help grow this organization and make folks understand what it is all these members do, not only for the Hobby, but for just history and military in general but, you know, one of the things I have to ask you, what is your collection like?
[Tom] My collection, well, my collection could be a lot better but I’ll have to get approval from my superior officer, my wife, so, she put up with me for 40 years, so I got to keep that, keep that happy as well.
Right now, I, well, used to own an M38-A1 which was a Jeep.
And it was a 67 pattern Canadian Army.
I now own world war II Canadian Army contract Willy’s MB.
And totally restored.
And I’ve got a M38 Canadian that I’m currently in the process of restoring.
Hopefully, it’ll be finished within the next five to six months so I’m pretty excited about that as well.
[Bob] Well, one thing is the new president here, I know, that you’re coming in, and of course, the convoys across America and all of that is just a big deal for the MVPA.
And I know 2019 is is one of those exceptional years, coming across gonna start in DC, Gettysburg and all of that.
And so, we hope to join you all there as well, but tell us about the convoy process because that really gets the message out across the country over, over a month and a half of the guys on the road.
[Tom] Oh yeah, yeah absolutely, incredible.
The convoy in itself is, is, is a way to showcase the hobby and its history in motion and that’s our magazine.
We’re changing our name up from Army Motors to History in Motion, which more accurately reflects the hobby as a whole covering off all the different services whether it’s Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard.
Any of the branches and any of our partner, Allied partners.
So, as you can see, throughout the entire complex here you have a good representation of those vehicles.
The convo itself, though, really builds that public interaction and, and we get great attention and we get great support.
And one thing you’ll find that we, we see as Canadians, when we come down here, is the support of the military, the veterans and the current serving members.
Which, we as an organization, really support.
So, the convo just fits hand in glove with us.
[Announcer] When Military Collectors continues, we meet a special collector and restorer of World War I vehicles who has a special skill despite his handicap.
If you have missed any past episodes of Military Collectors, be sure to go online at military collectors tv.com and you can see not only past episodes, but also read in-depth features on the people and their pasion of their military collections.
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[Music]
[Bob] Well, as we continue this week’s show, World War I has been a focus here at the convention in Louisville Kentucky but I have a special guest for you all today and, I tell you what, he’s got a 1915 World War I Ford anti-aircraft gun and his Bob Roe from Atlanta Georgia.
He traveled all the way up here but I’m not going to tell you a special secret about Bob because I want him to tell you.
And so Bob, I want to thank you very much for being on Military Collectors today but tell me about this great piece of restoration, the vehicle that you had back here, this is, this is really neat.
[Bob Roe] Well, as you mentioned it’s a 1915 Ford Model T and it’s original to the family.
My wife’s family is from Leavenworth Kansas and this was sitting in a barn along with five other model Ts and they asked me to start getting involved in restoring them.
And I said, “I don’t know anything about Model T’s.
I don’t know anything about the technology.
Give me one I can screw up.” So, they pulled this old Doodlebug, which was a farm implement tool out of a converted Model T, out of the farm and they said, “Here, go at!” All of the metal work is original.
The radiator, the fenders, the tires, wheels, everything you see is original, except the wood, of course, got eaten up by termites sometime in the last hundred and three years.
So, we got the plans from Ford Motor Company to build a light open express wooden body.
And we’ve recreated this as a World War I Light Patrol vehicle.
[Bob] Well, you know, I think, what’s so unique about it is is the quality of the restoration, okay, so now I want it, I just have to do this, because, okay, listen, (I know what’s coming!) There, there are folks that have two great eyes, 20/20 vision, but folks, I want you to understand, Bob is blind.
He is legally blind and so, Bob tell the folks out there the rest of the story because I it’s so special.
[Bob Roe] Well, I grew up and, you know, child of a baby boomer and you know a lot of stress, a lot of cholesterol issues growing up, being in the corporate world and in 2005 I had a minor stroke that caused the blood supply to get cut off to the optic nerve in one eye.
And went to the doctors and they said you know the bad news is it never happens to guys, it never happens to guys under 60, and it never happens in both eyes.
Well, a year later I won the lottery, and I lost my second eye.
So my optical prescription is 20 over hand motion.
Doctor says, “How many fingers?” I don’t know, can you see my hand?
No.
And she does this and I see them, the movement, I see the motion.
So, obviously I was unable to continue to do my job in real estate.
I couldn’t drive.
I can’t read.
I can’t write because of my optical situation.
So, I’m now retired, forcibly retired, and on medical disability and my wife says, “What are you can do with your time?” And I said, “I’ve always wanted to restore a car.
I’ve always wanted to do a car.” Which opens up that can of worms, a muscle car?
T-Bird? A Model A? a Model T? what do you want to do?
Well, I always grew up just fascinated with the history of World War II.
I built every model kit there was to build.
My father served in World War II.
Jane’s father served in World War II.
I said, “I’d like to do a military vehicle.” We went up to a farmer’s field in Cleveland Georgia that I saw on the internet and he had a 1942 Ford GPW sitting in the field, engine held in with a ratchet strap, transmission held in with a ratchet strap, wrong seats, wrong windshield, and I felt it with my hands.
And I felt the rear panel and I felt the word F- O- R- D and I said, “This one’s going home with us!” I’m born and raised from Dearborn Michigan which is corporate headquarters for Ford Motor Company and that Jeep went home with us and I restored all by feel, all by touch, every leaf spring, every F marked nut and bolt.
We took it apart.
A lot of technologies available out there on the internet to help me read.
I could put a picture on a closed-circuit television and it would blow it up with enough magnification that I could kind of make out which part went where.
My family was a big help.
It became a team effort.
You know, I lost my eyesight but I didn’t lose my vision.
And I kept my eye on the prize and I wanted to get that Jeep done and the results of that project were in 2013, my 22 year old son drove my 92 year old World War II veteran father in a Veterans Day Parade in Marietta Georgia.
And that’s, that’s, that’s a vision I’ll always have.
I’ll always have that picture in my mind.
So then, it came time to do another military vehicle.
When it came time to do the Model T, I said, “Well, I want a Ford from every World War.
So, we did it as a World War I, light patrol vehicle.
Did that research, did our homework, realize how we wanted to do it.
We had the green paint in stock, so the rest is literally history.
[Bob] Well, I have one last question for you, Bob, how long does it take you to do the Model T?
So, both vehicles took us about the same time, just a little over a year.
Being retired, so obviously, it’s not a weekend project or it’s not a late night project.
Although, there was a lot of weekends and late nights involved in both of them.
So, if out of about a year to take it off, again, every nut, every bolt, every leaf of the leaf spring, get it down to bare metal, restore the metal, prime it, paint it, put it all back together.
The technology between the two vehicles very similar.
They’re both six volt, they’re both negative ground, they both start with a crank, if you need them to, and it took us about a year.
It’s a labor of love, as those in the hobby know, you don’t do it for the money.
You’ll never get the money out of it you put into it.
You do it because you think it’s important.
You do it because they’ve got a story to tell and you want to help them tell that story.
[Bob] Well, Bob, God bless you for the, from all of the folks at the MVPA convention here, and all those folks across the country who have a passion just like you do, but your passion is special and so I want to thank you for bringing this all the way up from Atlanta to Louisville Kentucky because, again, I know it’s a labor of love but it’s great to share these things because it has a story.
It’s your story and that’s so special, thank you.
[Narrator] Stay tuned, after commercial break, we’ll take a look at an unusual and rare collection of horse-drawn wagons from World War I.
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[Music]
[Bob] Well, joining me now is the King of Carts, World War I carts that is, Leonard Gramel from South Bend, Indiana and these carts, ammunition and machine gun carts, you very rarely see.
Probably less than 200 left in the world, probably all destroyed after the war and this guy from South Bend Indiana, this is his passion, this is his life, his collection, Leonard, I will tell you it is an honor and a privileged to have you here in Louisville Kentucky, but I just have to ask you, how many of these do you have?
[Leonard] I have 29 carts right now.
[Bob] And, you know, really the uniqueness of these, ok, how did you start your passion, your love to collect these things?
[Leonard] Well, I was a gun dealer for 32 years and I’d built water cooled and air-cooled Browning guns, belt-fed weapons.
And the 1917 carts are considered the ultimate accessory for a machine gun, especially the water-cooled belt-fed machine gun.
And so, this is the accessory that can hardly ever be found.
[Bob] Now, this one particularly, here is again one of those original carts.
[Leonard] This is one of the three I found in the creek.
[Bob] Yeah, just, just briefly describe it because, you know, not a lot of collectors, not a lot of folks who loved the military would even recognize what this was, right?
Tell me what makes this one so unique as an ammo carrier.
[Leonard] Well, they had to carry a lot of ammo and the wooden ammo boxes.
They didn’t have the stamping steel technology to make an ammo can like we have today so they made them out of wood, quarter sawn white oak painted OD green.
For World War I, the ammo cart carried either 14 boxes of ammo at 250 rounds per box of cloth belt loaded 30.6.
Or they carried 13 boxes and a water can like you see on the gun cart.
(Right.) The gun cart only carried six or seven ammo cans or ammo boxes.
The ammo cart carried 14.
What makes this distinctive is that of the three companies that made the carts, International Harvester Velie Car Company out of Moline, Illinois and the St. Louis Car Company out of St. Louis, Missouri.
Now the St. Louis Car Company made buses, tractors, trolley cars, trams.
They worked in steel. They made steel stamped.
(Oh, end plate.) for that, for the carrier, ends of the ammo carrier.
(Right.) They were the only manufacturer to make them out of steel.
The International Harvester and Velie Car Company made theirs out of wood.
So this is a distinctive cart. In the fact, that it can be verified is made by the St. Louis Car Company because the tags on the front of the carts are are not marked by the manufacturer, they just give the nomenclature of the military ordnance company, machine gun cart, ammo cart or spare gun cart.
So, this is a distinctive cart.
And if you notice all of them were painted Vickers because Vickers was supposed to be the premier gun that the US military was going to use.
But because England had been at war since 1914, they had made a contract with Colt for the 1915 Colt Vickers machine gun for the United States military.
Which would have been in 30.6, that was our standard cartridge.
So, all these carts originally were marked St.
Louis Car Company, used paint. The International Harvester and Moline vicar…
er, Velie Car Company, engraved them in the wood. They engraved it rather than painted.
So that’s the main story behind the three standard carts.
And the spare gun cart was declared obsolete because when we started using the Browning 1917 water-cooled, you didn’t need spare guns.
It would outlast any other water-cooled belt-fed weapon, is considered the finest gun of its day.
[Announcer] When Military Collectors comes back from commercial break, we take a look at a World War I tank that a whole community got involved in to restore and preserve American history.
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The all-new Chevy Silverado. It’s a little bit country and it’s a little bit rock and roll. [Music]
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[Music]
[Bob] Well, here at the 2018 Convention in Louisville Kentucky of the MVPA, our focus today is on World War I and joining me is Jim Osburn.
He’s from Vincennes Indiana, a collector, 73 years old, a former judge, but this guy has got a collection that’s out of this world!
But he has got this M17 World War I tank behind us.
Jim, God bless you and thank you so much for what you all, you’re doing for preservation of history.
But tell me about this wonderful tank.
[Jim] Well, Bob, there’s the M1917 is extremely rare.
They made nine hundred and fifty in World War I, of that, only 20 still exist, accounting this one.
So, you can understand how rare they are today.
We didn’t have one at the Indiana Military Museum and at the price that the last one went for, close to a million dollars, we were’nt gonna have one.
And so, unless we put one together, a piece one together, build it or something.
We looked into that, we started finding some original parts but not a lot.
We decided we’re just going to build the rest to scale.
We’re going to get all the dock, all the drawings and all the specs and start doing it.
We got the, we got the steel donated.
We had various other things donated along the way that all made it possible and we had two very, very skilled metal workers that jumped in on this job and said, we’ll, we’ll tackle this!
So, that was three years ago and there it sits!
So, you know, it’s a long, long trail but we accomplished it!
[Bob] Well, I have to ask you, let’s go back a little bit.
(Yeah.) How did you get into collecting and preserving things like this?
[Jim] Seven years old, I started collecting shortly after World War II.
Only, all the World War II things were around, that people were still talking about World War II.
I just started hauling things home, helmets, you know, putting them in my parents basement.
Before long, the basement was full and they begin to notice it was filling, yeah so, that’s just how it started.
I’ve been collecting ever since I was seven years old.
It just went from small things to bigger things.
We went to Jeeps and went to artillery and it went to tanks and this kept getting…
now we have aircraft as well and, and now we’ve also formed the Indiana Military Museum which is, is a, which is a not-for-profit 501 C 3.
Which whereas all these things are housed now in Vincennes.
[Bob] Well, and you’re continuing to grow obviously the museum there to house all of the vehicles but how important is it to the economy there and how important is it to history that what you’re doing because it has a tremendous impact.
[Jim] Glad you mention that, cause its important both ways, locally Vincennes, a very historic City, tourism is important there and we’re kind of an integral part of that now and we have maybe 15,000 visitors a year come to the museum.
So, I had, that’s real important and it’s real important that we have youngsters and school groups veterans groups, they all come now to see the museum, see what we have, understand US military history better, it makes us very happy, very proud.
[Bob] Well, Jim you have another key piece here, very rare.
Let’s go take a look at this because it really interests me, although it’s not American.
(Yeah.) but it’s significant.
[Jim] It’s another rare armored piece, so I’ll show you.
(After you.) This is this, is a turret Maxim machine gun turret out of a German A7V tank.
Now people think the Germans had a lot of Tanks in World War I, nope, they built 20.
That was it. Only 20 tanks.
This is, this is one of six.
There would be six of these gun turrets in each one of those tanks.
After the War, all of the Allied powers got one of these tanks as a souvenir, shipped ’em home.
You asked, the British, the French, the Australians, and so forth, today only one of those still exist in Australia in the Australian War Museum.
All the others were scrapped.
This came out of the US tank “Nixie” which was, was it’s popular name and the Germans gave it.
This came out of that tank the day it was being scrapped and was saved.
So, it’s, this is an extremely rare piece of armour history.
This turret right here.
So we built again, our people built the rest of this to replicate exactly what that gun position would look like in the tank.
This is the original piece, right here, that it emphasizes.
So, we’re really proud to have this too, I mean, it’s, it’s a, it’s an interesting cog in the wheel of all this history of armour.
[Bob] Well, you know, Jim, I will tell you, I am so impressed with what you have done and over the course of your years of collecting.
That is why we’re doing what we do to showcase folks just like you across this country. So…
[Jim] We appreciate, appreciate being a part of that and then thank you for your interest in us I hope you’ll look hope you’ll come to see us.
[Bob] Well, if folks want to come see, they I know, you have a website where they tell everybody out there how they can log on, so they can come.
[Jim] Well, in the under Indiana Military Museum dot-com .org I think both.
And we’re open every day 10:00 to 4:00, every day of the year so they come to Vincennes, just ask for the Indiana Military Museum.
It’s right downtown because it’s next to the George Rogers Clark National Park.
We’re just adjacent to that perfect location.
[Bob] Well, that’s part one of Military Collectors this week from the MVPA convention here in Louisville Kentucky I want to tease a little bit about next week’s show.
It’s a two-part series and this ambulance right here, this is my personal collection, here I’m back at the motor pool, but the WC 54 1942 Dodge Ambulance.
Our guest next week was a young soldier with Patton’s army across Europe.
He landed at the beaches of Normandy in his WC 54 and he took that thing all the way to Berlin.
And Tom Grasser is going to be a special guest on our show as well as Melvin Richardson who was a Seabee during World War II.
Those two guys, I tell you, when you hear their stories, if it doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, just about like it did ours, I’m telling you, you just really have no idea the sacrifices that these two guys made as well as every veteran of the greatest generation.
So, with all of that, I’d like to thank everybody at the MVPA who made our visit possible to Louisville Kentucky.
We hope you’ve enjoyed Military Collectors this week.
Until next week, we’ll be right back here again on another episode of Military Collectors.
[Music]