Historic Aviation

Greg Herrick’s retail business (Historic Aviation, Inc.) is an interesting one and I have to admit that his catalogue is entertaining to read through. He seems to have something for everyone, no matter what era or area of aviation is in reference. I seldom buy things from HA, however, due to the fact that his prices tend to be a bit ‘up-​there’ and are generally available from other sources for far less (I suspect that his mark-​up is rather substantial on too many of his offered items). My criticisms of Historic Aviation are somewhat superficial, therefore, one of them being that he (or whomever he hires to write his product descriptive copy) tends to be rather glib with the word usage. For instance, anyone reading through his catalogue of items tends to stumble frequently across favorite words like ‘archetypical’ (i.e. «This archetypical cap features all those characteristics of the original issue item…»). Given the rather widespread & sad abuse of English language usage these days, I should perhaps be a bit more forgiving, but it actually irritates me to run into the vastly overused ‘archetypical’ (to cite one sore example) in paragraph after paragraph of item comments in the pages of his catalogue; you’d think that with all the profits that HA is generating for Greg that he’d be a bit more resourceful in sourcing out and applying his descriptive commentary. I recently ordered a ¹⁄₆ scale resin figure of Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, despite the horrific price HA was asking for it (US$ 180.00), since this figure is a rather excellent personification of that key figure of the German Third Reich. Described as ‘hand-​painted’ and finely detailed, the small images of it in his catalogue certainly looked promising. But worth US$ 180? Um, er. When the figurine arrived, I found myself slightly less than completely happy with it, since the painting details gave evidence of some hasty carelessness on the part of the crafts-​person who painted it. Further, the round aperture on the base (into which a peg on the foot of the figurine was intended to be inserted) was drilled at an awkward angle that makes the figure lean backwards at an unrealistic angle (more evidence of carelessness and haste, characteristic of a ‘hand-​crafted assembly line’ approach). Give these less than satisfactory touches, the full HA asking price of US$ 180 is consequently (in my opinion) WAY overblown. [That said, the fact that people like me seem to be willing to pay that price perhaps makes this criticism somewhat moot, eh?] A few other of the items offered in Greg’s catalogue are best kept away from (such as the German WW2 uniform replica peaked caps) and are inferior reproductions at best (there are better sources to avai, at these asked-​for prices that will yield absolute authenticity of appearance; one just needs to search the internet a bit to find them). On the plus side of the equation, the figurine referenced above was shipped in a very adequate container, well padded and protected, so at least it arrived safely and without damage incurred during shipment. So… what’s the overall assessment of Historic Aviation? If you have lots of prototypical US $$$ and can’t be bothered to shop around a bit for your prototypical aviation mementos, Greg’s Historic Aviation is a fun place to avail and in doing so help out the prototypical Minnesota economy through what promises to be a very cold winter.