The Seller
Sixty percent of business at Platinum Fighter Sales is domestic, with the remaining sales tracking a flight path abroad.

“We have people that buy an airplane in U.S. dollars and hold on to it and then sell it just because the exchange rate is favorable,” Brown says. “They make more money off the exchange rate than they do off the value of the airplane sometimes.”

A large portion of Brown’s international sales are from Europe. There are also buyers in Australia and New Zealand, with sales in Eastern Europe and Russia growing.

Buying or selling a vintage aircraft can be an emotional exercise for a collector. Investors, however, just want the best deal, Brown says.  “If someone wants a particular airplane, we take the emotion out of it for them,” he says. “We don’t want them to pay too much. We want them to be treated fairly.”

Parts and Restoration
The purchase price is often only the first in a long line of expenses for both collectors and investors. Returning a vintage aircraft to its former glory (or even just a flyable state) can be an expensive task.

For Brown, it comes down to the individual choice of love vs. money. “Some airplanes you can do a restoration and be financially still in a good situation,” he says. “Other airplanes you are going to restore can be that much more labor-intensive, and you may end up upside-down on it and never get your money out. Perhaps in 10 years you may, but not straight away.”

Herrick admits to investing more than $10 million into purchasing and restoring aircraft, but he thinks certain  planes should be left as is. Of the first diesel-powered plane, the 1928 Stinson SM-IDX Detroiter, he says, “That’s an artifact and is in its original condition, and any restorer, no matter how good they are, is not going to rebuild the airplane exactly like it was.” The Stinson is, and will remain, earth-bound.

Buying History: Glacier Gal
On rare occasions, an aircraft’s history can be more important than its condition.

In 1942 a Lockheed P-38 fighter crashed in Greenland during a delivery flight from the U.S. to England. Encased in a glacier for the next half century, the warbird was recovered from beneath 260 feet of ice in 1992 and then restored by Kentucky businessman Roy Shoffner. Known as Glacier Girl, “it’s one of the most famous planes in the world because of the history of it being under the ice,” Brown says.

Glacier Girl was purchased by Rodney Lewis, president and chief executive officer of Lewis Energy Group, for an undisclosed amount and now forms part of his extensive warbird collection.