How can I help you? Well, I've got this
early World War II flying corps helmet,
and inside it's marked to Lieutenant R. Reagan. OK. Ronald Reagan, he was a big
actor before he was president, and during World War
II, a lot of actors wanted to go into combat. And the army said no, no,
no, you don't understand. You're no longer
a Hollywood star. You'll do whatever
we tell you to do, and you're going to
make training films. So have you seen any
film where he's wearing something similar to this? I did. One that's on the
internet, that you can see, is "How To Recognize
A Japanese Zero." OK. Well, first off, we don't
know for sure if it was his. If you can find correspondence
from Reagan's staff, giving the helmet to somebody
in southern Pennsylvania from whom I got it,
it could be done. Yeah, and I could also win
a beauty pageant one day. [laughter] Normally in
situations like this, I would just tell
you to kick rocks, but this is Ronald
Reagan, all right? So how much do you want for it? 5,000. OK. I'll give you
$2,000 bucks for it. And this is literally a gamble. I'd take three. Would you take 25? I'd have to go with three. [sigh] You just turned me
into a degenerate gambler. All right. So I'm going to
California tomorrow. For what? I'm going to the Reagan
ranch, believe it or not. I'm going with you. Why would you want to go? I need to get out of the shop. Where are you going? The Reagan ranch. Me and my dad are going. That'll be fun. You and Corey on a
little family vacation, Reagan ranching it up. Corey and I are on our
way to Santa Barbara, and hopefully we can
authenticate this Ronald Reagan helmet I recently bought. We're going to the Reagan ranch,
which was President Reagan's vacation home back in the day. Now it's a historical site, so
we're going to go down there, and we're to speak
with the curator. How's it going? Good. Welcome to Rancho del Cielo. Mike Reagan. Yeah, and-- Rachel. OK. So this is what I
called you guys about. I took a big gamble and
bought it, and now-- I guess you're like
the casino, and you're going to tell me if I won. [laughter] Well, I can definitely
dig into it for you. Yeah, it has Reagan
stenciled right there. Yeah. Wow. This looks great. I'm hoping this
was one of the ones he wore in a training film. Yeah. We can definitely look into
that, and see what we can find. So what do we got here? So Reagan was a part
of one of the first film units in the Army Air Force. He filmed over 200
videos during his career, and he appeared as a
pilot in most of those. So we found some videos of
him in those training films, and we can look at the
film, and the helmet, and compare them side by side. OK. The first clip is
from a film called "The Rear Gunner," in which
Reagan appears as a pilot. So in this clip, you can
see the pilots actually aren't wearing helmets. Most of them are just
wearing headsets, and Reagan does
appear earlier on in the film, where he's
wearing his official uniform, but not with a pilot helmet on. The one that I thought would
be a really good option was when he appeared
in "Recognizing A Japanese Zero," which is
probably one of the more famous of his films. In here you can see him
[inaudible] as a pilot, and he is wearing
a helmet, but it's slightly different than
the one we have here. OK. I think the chin
strap's different. Yeah, the chin
strap is different, and the buckle piece
is also different. So we're inconclusive
at the moment? Unfortunately, yes. So would your dad
have written a letter if he gave this to somebody? He wrote letters to everybody. If he gave it to
somebody, he would have written them a letter with it. He certainly would have gotten
a thank you letter back, that would be in the archives. It would be at the library. OK. Can you help us out
with the library? I'd be happy to help. So this sounds like there's
going to be a lot of digging, and this could take
a long time, so I will leave the helmet with you. We'll take good care of it. We'll definitely use
it to dig a little, and see what we can find. And we're hoping
to follow a lead, so we can really
authenticate it. OK, cool. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. You did amazing, dude. It's great helping you. It's been great
having you here. Thank you for coming. Thank you. - Corey, great to see you.
- You, too. Thank you. So we weren't able to
authenticate the helmet just yet, but Rachel's going
to do a lot more digging, and I've really got my fingers
crossed, because in the end, I think this thing is real. In the meantime,
I'm going to leave the helmet here at the ranch,
so other visitors can enjoy it. And hopefully I get some
really good news soon. I can't wait to come
back here, because this is really one of the coolest
places I've ever been to.
