In interesting feature posted today on the Hickory Daily Record website:
‘Some people collect coins, I collect tanks’
Interest, knowledge takes avid history buff to movie sets
By Sarah Newell
Record Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007NEWTON – William Warren has loved military memorabilia since he was a child. He remembers his uncle giving him his first souvenir from a war.
“He gave me an old German helmet he brought back from the war. I remember playing with it as a kid,” Warren said.His collection of military items has grown quite a bit since then. Warren has just about any military item you can think of, including uniforms, patches, miniature dolls, war posters, ration cards, actual rations, even several military vehicles he’s restored, ranging from a paratrooper bicycle to an M-43 ambulance.
“I’ve always been an avid history buff. Guns, uniforms, everything has a story. Some people collect coins, I collect tanks,” Warren said. “Our country is based on revolution and war. It’s how we got our start, it’s part of our history. And my family always has been involved in the military.”
His father was in the military, and his grandfather was in the 1914 Calvary. Warren himself is named after a relative who fought in the Revolutionary War, and was with George Washington for a short time in Valley Forge.
Warren’s collection of military items is so extensive and his knowledge of military history is so exhaustive that he’s even been asked to help out on a few movies – both with movie props and as a consultant. He worked closely with Steven Spielberg on “Saving Private Ryan,” and helped with several of the demolition scenes in the movie.
“I helped put together the sticky bombs, dynamite sticks and explosives on the bridge scene in the movie. Everything that’s taped onto the bridge, I made,” Warren said. “They’re made out of wood, Styrofoam and paper.”
Warren said he initially got started in the movie prop business because word got around about his extensive collection of military memorabilia.
“Some of this equipment is hard to find, and Spielberg is big on authenticity. A lot of it is through word of mouth. After a while, people knew to call me when they needed something,” he said.
Of course, Warren helps out others in the Catawba County region, as well. A portion of his World War I items are on display in the Catawba County Museum of History for area residents to view.
And he doesn’t just have uniforms and war posters in his vast collection. One of the strangest items? A piece of monkey feces.
“It’s a radio transmitter from Vietnam that sends a radio signal out. They had it look like monkey poop so that when it was lying out, no one would step on it, and no one would pick it up, either,” Warren said, adding a friend in the Secret Service gave it to him.
Warren began seriously collecting military items more than 30 years ago. Although he finds the items interesting, he finds the veterans he gets to talk to even more so.
“I like to honor veterans. I’d rather spend more time with a World War II vet than anywhere else,” he said.
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I’ve always thought that “found” and “historic” props, that have a history of their own, to be quite a fascinating subset of the hobby. As an example, my Terminator 2 Winchester shotgun is a vintage piece from 1887. It’s fun to think back to the time in which it was manufactured and perhaps used, and wonder what those back in history would think, if they could have a glimpse into the future.
I think it’s quite common that, with historic war films in particular, vintage and period props and wardrobe are reused both for authenticity and as a cost saving measure. It’s makes for an intriguing intersection of reality with fantasy.
Jason De Bord