[blues music playing]
- What we have here? I have a banner. All right. And it's the banner
for the Cubs-- no!
[laughs] It's for the Fly-- Whoa! The American volunteer group. RICK: The Flying Tigers?
ALAN: Yes, sir. RICK: The Flying Tigers was
a group of volunteers that went to China and flew planes
for the Chinese government to fight the Japanese. This is really,
really, really cool! I remember even
as a kid having-- I used to-- the little model
airplanes and everything, once in a while, and I
thought my one hanging from the ceiling that was the-- one of the Flying Tigers with
the tiger teeth and everything on the side of it. I'm like super nerding
out on this thing, dude! They did have the coolest
looking planes though. Yes.
Yes, they did. [gun fire] I'm at the pawn shop today
to try and sell my banner. I have a banner from
the Flying Tigers. The Flying Tigers are a
group of about 320 men, which prior to World War II, went
to China to help defend against invading Japanese. It's a piece that's being
retired from my collection. And I hope to get a
good price for it. RICK: This is an amazing find. Before World War II, these
guys were military officers who resigned their commission
to volunteer to fight in China and have absolutely
no backup support. If you crashed, no one
was coming to rescue you. There was no medevac
You were going to die. The flying tigers
are absolute legends. If this is an actual banner
from the Flying Tigers, and it belonged to a
pilot, that's huge. So how much do you want for it? After looking online, I
think they go for quite a bit. I'm going to be
asking 10,000 for it. So, what's quite a bit? 17,000, 32,000. They've gone for
way over the top. RICK: OK. ALAN: I know you
have to make money. RICK: OK, the insane prices
would be for like leaders, ace pilots, things like that. Correct. RICK: This is my big
problem with these things, they're faked. They're fake like crazy. It looks maybe old enough and-- there is nothing more tempting
to fake than the Flying Tigers. It's almost too good to be true. I want someone to look at this.
He'll know more-- ALAN: OK. --about it than me. He'll probably know more
than you and just about everyone else on the planet. So, I just to get his opinion.
OK? Sounds great.
RICK: All right. Thank you very much. RICK: I'll be back MARK: Now, it's obviously
silk, which would be correct. Now, they-- they did these
basically as souvenirs. The interesting thing about
them is they were all handmade, and you would have ordered
it from a local seamstress who would have used
the silk that she had available at the time. This one you can see the
silk is beginning to go here. That's absolutely
typical of these things. Let me take a look at the
back, see how this is done. Oh, yeah. And you can see this
is all hand done. So, what's your concern on it? RICK: It looks right to me,
but is this the Flying Tigers? Is this faked? Who is R.C. Peret? Is this the right
colors for the banner? You know it--
[laughter] Understandable. Had any chance to try
to track him down? I found his name in a
Flying Tiger book from '42. He was a flight engineer
for the second squadron and parachute rigger. MARK: He would've
been one of the 200 they came along
as support staff. I'll tell you, Rick. Looking at this-- [suspenseful music] I think this is real. I think it's absolutely--
- Yeah! MARK: --original,
World War II made. You know, it's a
really nice find. Yeah.
RICK: OK. Sweet! Well thanks, man. Not a problem.
Thanks a lot. - Thank you.
- Thanks for letting me see it. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. This is just a
really wonderful souvenir from that time. This is one that has a great
deal of historic interest and visual interest. [rock music playing] RICK: It's an incredible piece. OK. You're one major drawback
here, it's not a pilot. ALAN: Yeah. RICK: OK and-- and it
makes a huge difference. Sure. RICK: I'm thinking-- (GROANS)
I'll give you $4,000 grand for it. [suspenseful music] And I-- and I-- the
reason why I think that's a fair price, these other
ones, these are pilots. These are-- those guys
are in the history books. This guy's not. That's the difference. Do you think maybe we
could come up to seven maybe? (SIGHS) I would
go $4,500 bucks. [suspenseful music] Can we go five? [suspenseful music] I'll go $4,600 bucks. I mean-- I'm not going
to get rich off you. [suspenseful music] I think we got a deal.
RICK: Sweet! This is cool! I'll meet you right
over there, man. Find it a good home. Thank you. I'm going to take
$4,600 today because I think it's a fair price,
and I need the money. [rock music playing]
