RICK: So what exactly do we have here?
Yeah.
OLD MAN: Like a big flash light.
This is known as an infrared heat seeker
for the Sidewinder missiles.
They were attached to the F-4 Phantoms.
And should I call Homeland Security now or--
JULIEANN: I'm coming down to the pawn shop
to sell my infrared heat seekers for the Sidewinder missiles.
The reason I want to sell them is
because my father needs money.
There's a lot of collectors out there would love to own one.
I mean, someone could say that they have one of these.
It's amazing, amazing piece of technology.
Rick, this is a first.
No, we've never had a guidance system for a missile.
I've never really needed one.
[laughter]
So this was attached to the F-4.
JULIEANN: Yes, and they were used to guide
the Sidewinder missiles.
All right.
So where did you get this thing?
JULIEANN: Well, my father used to do military surplus
bidding in the '70s and '80s.
And he bid on empty shipping containers, 400 of them,
sealed bid.
He won it for $25.
OK.
As he's loading them into the truck,
he noticed some were heavy.
He opened it up.
And these were inside.
This is crazy.
A guy buys a bunch of run of the mill
shipping containers at a government auction for 25 bucks
and finds these inside?
That's incredible.
But I got to dig a little bit more
before I have the Air Force come breathing down my neck.
RICK: All right.
This is really cool.
But do you have paperwork from the Department
of Defense or somebody saying you can own this thing?
JULIEANN: Yes.
They were supposed to have been destroyed.
But they ended up at the auction.
RICK: And this is all from the Department of Navy, huh?
Dear sir, the copy of the board's
decision on your owning this.
Rick, that's official Navy documents.
It looks like it's good to go.
RICK: OK.
So apparently you own this.
But this isn't an actual missile.
Right?
It's been decommissioned.
JULIEANN: Yes, I believe they're totally safe.
RICK: OK.
It is cool though.
I mean, I really do dig it.
Before this, you had to see your enemy.
JULIEANN: Yep.
These came out, now you had dogfights
where you were just looking at a radar
screen inside the cockpit.
JULIEANN: Right.
In 1964, this was so high tech.
It was unbelievable.
This was Cold War technology.
And the whole thinking was not if we were going
to go to war with the Russians?
It's when.
It's something you didn't want to fall in enemy hands.
Right.
If this really is a Cold War era heat seeker,
there's all kinds of people I could
sell it to, aviation collectors, war collectors,
technology geeks.
But I have to know for sure, is this thing what she says it is
or if it's legal to buy?
It's really interesting.
I'll tell you that.
What I'm trying to figure out is--
OLD MAN: What the hell are you going to do with it?
I mean, are they worth any money?
I mean, I don't know if this thing is worthless.
I don't know if it's worth $20,000.
I don't even know if it's legal to own these things.
The last thing in the world I want to do
is end up on the no-fly list.
Let me go give someone a call.
And we'll find out what's going on with it.
JULIEANN: Great.
RICK: If I can, you can bet your ass I'm going
to try and buy this thing.
I just don't want to end up with federal agents
knocking on my door.
Hey, guys.
How are we doing?
RICK: This is it, the heat-seeking device for an F-4.
Wow.
I'm a US Marine Corps F-18 pilot with 17 years of experience.
I'm a graduate of the Naval Fighter Weapons School,
Top Gun.
And also, a US Navy Blue Angel pilot.
Now, this is a very interesting item.
I'm really surprised that you own this.
Do you have documents that say that you can have this?
Well, we do.
We have a letter that says we won them.
MATTHEW: OK.
You know, I almost didn't believe Rick when he called me.
It's actually an AIM-9 heat-seeker head.
They showed me documents and paperwork.
So they're legal to own it.
It's very rare to have that outside of a military base,
let alone in a pawn shop in Las Vegas.
So how exactly did these work?
MATTHEW: This item is basically the top foot
and a half of a nine foot heat-seeking missile.
If we were to take off this dome,
there would be a mirror in there with another reflecting mirror.
They would actually spin.
And behind that, we've actually got a filter.
And that filter would be able to decipher
some heat-seeking sources, i.e. an engine on a jet.
Probably came out early 1960s.
This was leading technology.
So we went from shooting bullets, either the 50
millimeter or the 20 cal.
And then, we expanded it to missiles.
And we were the first in the world to do that.
So instead of shooting from hundreds of feet,
we can now shoot out to a mile, a mile and a half.
So obviously, that gave us an advantage early in Vietnam.
National security is a big issue, especially nowadays.
Back in the 1960s, actually, this missile was compromised.
Off a German base, an AIM-9 went missing.
It was trucked past the Iron Curtain.
And a year later, the communists had the exact same missile.
So that advantage we had initially in Vietnam
was gone by the late 1960s.
So you're not like a Russian spy or anything are you?
Nyet.
[laughter]
OK.
So is there any collector value for this thing?
It's in good shape.
On a 1 to 10 scale as a fighter pilot,
I'd give it about a nine.
It's pretty neat.
No one really has one.
It's really-- commercial value, nothing.
I'll be honest with you.
It's hard to put a dollar on it.
But aviation museum, aviation nut,
heck, I'd like to have one at home.
All right. Thanks, man.
MATTHEW: You bet.
I appreciate you coming out.
Good to see you.
As a fighter pilot who has fired the AIM-9 missile,
it's exciting to see this.
If you find a person that really is into it, perhaps
an old Vietnam F-4 pilot or somebody like myself,
that could be a perfect item for him.
So how much were you looking to get out of this?
About $3,000?
No.
I just don't know what to say.
I'm thinking $500 and maybe I could do something with it.
Maybe I can't.
I don't know.
It's a real shot in the dark at $500.
You don't think this is worth more money than $500?
RICK: I think it's a neat piece of history.
But it's an antiquated thing that's going to sit.
JULIEANN: So $750 is out of the question?
$750 is out of the question.
I'll tell you what.
I'll go 550 bucks.
And I'm crazy even buying it, I think.
Hmm.
OK.
Well, we have more.
So I'll take my $550.
OK, $550. All right.
Let's go do some paperwork.
Thank you.
RICK: I'm psyched I got this.
It's something that'll definitely
get people in the door and have them talking.
Even if I don't sell it, I'm just as happy having
it sit on my shelf.
It's awesome.