The Holy Grail
Warbirds with infamous pasts aside, many vintage aircraft can be obtained for prices of about $50,000 or less. Trade-a-Plane.com has an exhaustive list of available craft from all eras.
But there are certain airplanes that remain out of reach for even the most affluent collector.
Herrick’s obsession is a Curtiss Condor from the 1930s. “There are none flying, but I know where one is in Antarctica. It was abandoned there,” he says. “I know that there is one on the side of a mountain in El Salvador, and I know there is one in a storage shed in Utah. That to me is the holy grail.”
On the sales side, Brown says anything British is super-hot right now, especially Spitfires and Hurricanes. “This year is the hundredth anniversary of the Royal Air Force,” he says. “It’s made them the flavor of the year. Anything that is British, in fact.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.