Creston pawn shop features rare plane crash photos

Two thousand, five hundred dollars.

That’s the price posted for each of three old color photos on display at Steve Wintermute’s Creston pawn shop, Quik Pawn.

The photos are from the plane wreck in Clear Lake on Feb. 3, 1959, the day rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, and their pilot, Roger Peterson, died. Since they are in color, they are especially rare. Few others, if any, exist.

But while their purchase could gross him $7,500, Wintermute has all but decided not to sell them to customers.

“They’re a great conversation piece,” he said.

How did three photos of a historic plane crash in Clear Lake end up in a Creston pawn shop? The story almost reads like a segment of Antiques Roadshow.

The box of junk

About 12 years ago, Wintermute heard a clink at the door of Quik Pawn, then recently launched in uptown Creston.

“I had a lady come in, down on her luck,” he said. “She had a box full of stuff—alarm clocks, a couple of dolls, a few books.”

At first, Wintermute didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary in the box. However, a few days later, he discovered three color photographs tucked between the pages of one of the books. Taken in the aftermath of a plane crash, the photos showed men sorting through crumpled pieces of wreckage, with bodies lying on the snow-covered ground.

Wintermute wasn’t sure what the photos were; they could have been from any small plane crash. However, the plane’s number, N3794, would turn out to be the only clue he needed. After one of his friends conducted a search online, he realized what he had on his hands.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Wintermute sent the photos to Christie’s Auction to have them authenticated. Christie’s confirmed that the photos were printed on paper of the correct vintage for that time period and appeared to be for real. Wintermute based his $2,500 price tag on the Christie’s suggested asking price.

Investigation

Although Wintermute doesn’t have any official documentation of the photos’ source, he does have a pretty good hunch where they came from. In part, this is due to the help of Tim Kenyon, county attorney.

“He helped me a little bit, and we deduced that the guy she was living with was a brother of the lady that owned the farm where the plane crashed,” Wintermute said.

However, the evidence remains circumstantial, Kenyon said.

“I still don’t have a human being that can say, ‘I was the one who took the photo,’” Kenyon said. “We pieced together that there were family members, and so that really explained generally how they could have come to be, but as far as having a chain for anybody—as they say in the world of auctions and sales, ‘documentation’ or ‘provenance’—there isn’t any.”

A few years ago, Wintermute submitted the photos to Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, the shop featured on the History Channel show “Pawn Stars.” Without any paperwork, however, Wintermute said they weren’t accepted.

But paperwork or not, the photos have certainly been a prominent discussion piece for Wintermute and his customers over the years.

“Just about everybody who walks in here stops at those photos,” Wintermute said.

Visitors have even brought him other items to put beside the photos, including a classic 45 rpm record and a concert flyer.

As Wintermute plans to sell the Quik Pawn, Quik Loans and Studio 101 Salon and Tanning businesses on West Taylor Street, these photos, which by now are a part of the shop, will be sold along with it.