Dear Friends of Robin Olds,
This is being sent to everyone on my Air Force/Aviation
> email list. If you
> don't want to be included on this list for future
> announcements, please do
> NOT be shy about asking me to remove your name. At the same
> time, please
> forward this through your own lists, if you choose. This
> will inevitably
> result in several people receiving duplicate emails. Sorry
> about that; 'tis
> the way of our wonderful AF connections around the world.
>
> It has taken me a while to know how to compose this news,
> but it's important
> to let everyone know what's going on with my dad's
> estate, which has been in
> probate since he passed away on June 14th, 2007.
>
> Despite how this may surprise many of you, Robin Olds did
> not own a house or
> have any savings when he died. In fact, he was deeply,
> deeply in debt - most
> of it to the IRS. My sister and I learned at a very early
> age to stay far
> away from his desk during tax season as the growling and
> colorful words
> emanating from his den had us getting our homework done on
> time and being
> more well-behaved than usual. Despite the frustration and
> struggle, Robin
> always filed his own taxes. In his last decade, this task
> became daunting as
> the tax laws changed and he had to file expense reports for
> the speech trips
> he was making. I encouraged him to turn everything over to
> a CPA or H&R
> Block, but the challenge of getting it done was too much
> fun for him to
> ignore. In his last four years, he ignored filing tax
> returns completely.
> The IRS got the message - and how!
>
> It has taken me over a year and a half to unscramble
> everything. In addition
> to the IRS, my dad filled all his many credit cards with
> the trips he was
> taking 3-4 times a month around the country and spots
> around the world to AF
> reunions, dining-ins, give speeches at museums, go to air
> shows, address
> graduates at NATO, etc., and just plain be around his
> "guys". He would go
> anywhere he was invited, just to be back around the life
> and the people he
> had loved so much. I don't know how he thought he was
> going to handle all
> the expenses on his Air Force pension, but, God bless him,
> I know he had a
> wonderful time.
>
> Robin left precisely $10,000 in Veteran's
> Administration life insurance to
> split between me and my sister Susan. In his will, he
> named me as Executrix
> and before he died, he profusely apologized for leaving me
> such a mess. We
> had a good laugh about it. He also expressed deep regret
> that he had never
> pulled his memoirs together into any sort of book form. I
> promised to finish
> and write his book for him, which is what I did over a very
> long year, with
> the great help of Ed Rasmius as editor and co-writer. That
> book is now at
> the publisher's. The current plan is to publish spring
> of 2010 but I won't
> know that date for a while. Stay tuned.
>
> In my dad's will he left all of his papers and military
> documents to the Air
> Force Academy library. He left all of his physical
> possessions and military
> memorabilia to me and to Susie. During the last few months
> of his life,
> when I lived with him in Steamboat, we spent many hours
> talking about the
> dispensation of his papers and memorabilia. He wanted me to
> give some of the
> papers also to Air University at Maxwell AFB because that
> library, along
> with the Library of Congress, is the top archival
> repository for historical
> documents and is open to all for research. He wished
> different pieces of
> memorabilia to be donated to the Museum of Flight in
> Seattle (American
> Fighter Aces), the AF Museum in Dayton, the Mighty Eighth
> in Georgia and the
> Smithsonian's Air & Space museum in Washington DC,
> plus many smaller museums
> owned by friends around the country, and to individuals and
> family members.
>
> When I moved out of Robin's rented house three months
> after he died, I moved
> all of his stuff into a rented, secure 10x10x8 storage
> unit. Then I spent
> from November of 2007 to December 1st, 2008 writing his
> biography, as I had
> promised. During that time, I dug into the two dozen boxes
> of papers,
> official documents, photographs, diaries and written
> memoirs to complete the
> tremendous research necessary to pull the book together but
> I never took the
> time to dispense any of the memorabilia, which remained
> safely in storage.
> Good thing!
>
> Now for the big news and the purpose of this email to all
> of you: In order
> to pay off Robin's debts, the Probate Court of Routt
> County, Colorado
> ordered me two months ago to start selling ALL of his
> military memorabilia,
> even the papers, in any manner I could. All proceeds go to
> the Estate of
> Robin Olds, supervised by the Court, NOT to me or to my
> sister. I will be
> eventually repaid down the line for funeral expenses and
> out-of-pocket
> expenses related to Executrix duties, but the vast majority
> (IRS and credit
> card debt) is around $70,000, with probate attorney fees
> and creditor legal
> fees climbing on top of that.
>
> Yes, it's a big mess, to say the least, but it's my
> fiduciary duty to close
> his estate. I've been working diligently (in addition
> to my 'real' job at a
> private Vail Resorts Club) to catalog, photograph and
> describe the
> collection, plus research the best way to sell. Various AF
> groups have
> offered to buy the whole lot and then auction off for their
> profit, but what
> they can offer comes nowhere near the amount it will take
> to pay the debts.
> As a result, I have decided to work with two online auction
> houses:
> www.rrauction.com (just autographs) and www.manions.com
> (Manion's
> International Auction House) to handle the entire
> collection. The director
> of Manion's is also a great fan of Robin's and a
> 30-year expert appraiser of
> military memorabilia.
>
> I've tested the waters slightly by consigning two of
> Robin's pieces to
> www.rrauction.com and any of you who may be interested
> should check out the
> current auction immediately. This auction closes May 13th
> and I've been
> remiss in getting this email out quickly. The two items
> listed are under the
> Space and Aviation section. #481 Air Force Book is a
> beautiful leather bound
> author's edition of "American Eagles", signed
> by 39 Air Force greats,
> including Gabby Gabreski, Bud Anderson, Tex Hill, Don
> Lopez, Joe Kittinger,
> Joe Engle and many more. The other listing is item #565
> -"Great Moments in
> Aviation History"-a stunning 1982 lithograph - the
> first painting
> commissioned by the Air Command and Staff College for the
> Gathering of
> Eagles. It depicts many aircraft circling between the earth
> and moon, signed
> by over a dozen famous aviators, including Curtis LeMay,
> Joe Foss, John W.
> Mitchell, Chuck Yeager, Neil Armstrong, Jimmy Doolittle and
> Robin Olds, of
> course! This is worth just logging onto the site to look at
> it. I may
> eventually consign more autographed lithographs to this
> RRauction.com site
> in the future. I still have over 20 lithographs at home.
> Robin kept them
> rolled up and stored in mailing tubes - all in excellent
> condition.
>
> The memorabilia collection contains all his papers and
> items saved since
> West Point, including battle maps, commemorative silver
> mugs, plaques,
> awards, uniforms, flight suits, squadron patches,
> photographs, scrapbooks,
> autographed biographies, caps, monogrammed shirts,
> insignia, official
> (now-declassified) Pentagon reports and interviews,
> diaries, letters, plus
> well over 200 military history and aviation books, most
> signed to Robin by
> the author.
>
> If I tried to do this all by myself, I'd spend the next
> two years listing
> things online piece-by-piece, dealing with buyers and then
> packing and
> shipping. There's just no way for me to do that and
> hold down my job or have
> a life. Manion's International Auction House is going
> to bring a truck and
> pack and pick everything up, appraise each piece and list
> as a special
> "Robin Olds Collection" auction on their home
> page, plus do a big media
> announcement about the auction. The items are scheduled to
> be picked up from
> here the first week of June and will be online by the end
> of June/first of
> July. I will send out another reminder before that auction
> goes online.
>
> In the meantime, I am listing several items on the
> Manion's
> "List-it-Yourself" store section of their website
> starting Tuesday morning,
> May 12 and will continue to add a few pieces a week as time
> allows. These
> are very specific to Wings, squadrons and USAFA and I'm
> hoping that Robin's
> former pilots and friends might want a piece of his
> memorabilia for home
> dens, basement bars or O-Clubs. Enter www.manions.com and
> click on "Stores".
> It will be listed as The Estate of Robin Olds.
>
> My dearest wish is to hold onto his framed medals, complete
> with all their
> accompanying certificates until the very last and then
> donate them to a
> museum. My sister and daughter and I will be keeping only a
> few photographs
> and one or two personal items each. That's OK.
> There's no way to store all
> of this. The memorabilia belongs with all of you. I'm
> just sorry that I
> can't give it away. It is sad for me to do this,
> because of Robin's and my
> plans to donate all, but it's also OK, because
> there's just no way I could
> handle storing and dispensing all of this over the years
> ahead. I'm hoping
> that some Robin admirers will purchase items and donate to
> the many large
> and small aviation museums around the country for tax
> write-offs.
>
> At some point in the near future, I'll be launching a
> website named
> www.robinolds-fighterpilot.com. I am hoping to turn the
> website into a
> great, ongoing informational and fighter pilot community
> site, with links to
> squadrons, museums, forums and wings around the world.a
> place where Air
> Force and Aviation buffs can gather and talk to each other.
>
> If any of you have any suggestions on other ways to get
> this done, please
> feel free to let me know. In the meantime, wish me luck!
>
> Sending love and thanks to all,
>
> Christina Olds
>
This is being sent to everyone on my Air Force/Aviation
> email list. If you
> don't want to be included on this list for future
> announcements, please do
> NOT be shy about asking me to remove your name. At the same
> time, please
> forward this through your own lists, if you choose. This
> will inevitably
> result in several people receiving duplicate emails. Sorry
> about that; 'tis
> the way of our wonderful AF connections around the world.
>
> It has taken me a while to know how to compose this news,
> but it's important
> to let everyone know what's going on with my dad's
> estate, which has been in
> probate since he passed away on June 14th, 2007.
>
> Despite how this may surprise many of you, Robin Olds did
> not own a house or
> have any savings when he died. In fact, he was deeply,
> deeply in debt - most
> of it to the IRS. My sister and I learned at a very early
> age to stay far
> away from his desk during tax season as the growling and
> colorful words
> emanating from his den had us getting our homework done on
> time and being
> more well-behaved than usual. Despite the frustration and
> struggle, Robin
> always filed his own taxes. In his last decade, this task
> became daunting as
> the tax laws changed and he had to file expense reports for
> the speech trips
> he was making. I encouraged him to turn everything over to
> a CPA or H&R
> Block, but the challenge of getting it done was too much
> fun for him to
> ignore. In his last four years, he ignored filing tax
> returns completely.
> The IRS got the message - and how!
>
> It has taken me over a year and a half to unscramble
> everything. In addition
> to the IRS, my dad filled all his many credit cards with
> the trips he was
> taking 3-4 times a month around the country and spots
> around the world to AF
> reunions, dining-ins, give speeches at museums, go to air
> shows, address
> graduates at NATO, etc., and just plain be around his
> "guys". He would go
> anywhere he was invited, just to be back around the life
> and the people he
> had loved so much. I don't know how he thought he was
> going to handle all
> the expenses on his Air Force pension, but, God bless him,
> I know he had a
> wonderful time.
>
> Robin left precisely $10,000 in Veteran's
> Administration life insurance to
> split between me and my sister Susan. In his will, he
> named me as Executrix
> and before he died, he profusely apologized for leaving me
> such a mess. We
> had a good laugh about it. He also expressed deep regret
> that he had never
> pulled his memoirs together into any sort of book form. I
> promised to finish
> and write his book for him, which is what I did over a very
> long year, with
> the great help of Ed Rasmius as editor and co-writer. That
> book is now at
> the publisher's. The current plan is to publish spring
> of 2010 but I won't
> know that date for a while. Stay tuned.
>
> In my dad's will he left all of his papers and military
> documents to the Air
> Force Academy library. He left all of his physical
> possessions and military
> memorabilia to me and to Susie. During the last few months
> of his life,
> when I lived with him in Steamboat, we spent many hours
> talking about the
> dispensation of his papers and memorabilia. He wanted me to
> give some of the
> papers also to Air University at Maxwell AFB because that
> library, along
> with the Library of Congress, is the top archival
> repository for historical
> documents and is open to all for research. He wished
> different pieces of
> memorabilia to be donated to the Museum of Flight in
> Seattle (American
> Fighter Aces), the AF Museum in Dayton, the Mighty Eighth
> in Georgia and the
> Smithsonian's Air & Space museum in Washington DC,
> plus many smaller museums
> owned by friends around the country, and to individuals and
> family members.
>
> When I moved out of Robin's rented house three months
> after he died, I moved
> all of his stuff into a rented, secure 10x10x8 storage
> unit. Then I spent
> from November of 2007 to December 1st, 2008 writing his
> biography, as I had
> promised. During that time, I dug into the two dozen boxes
> of papers,
> official documents, photographs, diaries and written
> memoirs to complete the
> tremendous research necessary to pull the book together but
> I never took the
> time to dispense any of the memorabilia, which remained
> safely in storage.
> Good thing!
>
> Now for the big news and the purpose of this email to all
> of you: In order
> to pay off Robin's debts, the Probate Court of Routt
> County, Colorado
> ordered me two months ago to start selling ALL of his
> military memorabilia,
> even the papers, in any manner I could. All proceeds go to
> the Estate of
> Robin Olds, supervised by the Court, NOT to me or to my
> sister. I will be
> eventually repaid down the line for funeral expenses and
> out-of-pocket
> expenses related to Executrix duties, but the vast majority
> (IRS and credit
> card debt) is around $70,000, with probate attorney fees
> and creditor legal
> fees climbing on top of that.
>
> Yes, it's a big mess, to say the least, but it's my
> fiduciary duty to close
> his estate. I've been working diligently (in addition
> to my 'real' job at a
> private Vail Resorts Club) to catalog, photograph and
> describe the
> collection, plus research the best way to sell. Various AF
> groups have
> offered to buy the whole lot and then auction off for their
> profit, but what
> they can offer comes nowhere near the amount it will take
> to pay the debts.
> As a result, I have decided to work with two online auction
> houses:
> www.rrauction.com (just autographs) and www.manions.com
> (Manion's
> International Auction House) to handle the entire
> collection. The director
> of Manion's is also a great fan of Robin's and a
> 30-year expert appraiser of
> military memorabilia.
>
> I've tested the waters slightly by consigning two of
> Robin's pieces to
> www.rrauction.com and any of you who may be interested
> should check out the
> current auction immediately. This auction closes May 13th
> and I've been
> remiss in getting this email out quickly. The two items
> listed are under the
> Space and Aviation section. #481 Air Force Book is a
> beautiful leather bound
> author's edition of "American Eagles", signed
> by 39 Air Force greats,
> including Gabby Gabreski, Bud Anderson, Tex Hill, Don
> Lopez, Joe Kittinger,
> Joe Engle and many more. The other listing is item #565
> -"Great Moments in
> Aviation History"-a stunning 1982 lithograph - the
> first painting
> commissioned by the Air Command and Staff College for the
> Gathering of
> Eagles. It depicts many aircraft circling between the earth
> and moon, signed
> by over a dozen famous aviators, including Curtis LeMay,
> Joe Foss, John W.
> Mitchell, Chuck Yeager, Neil Armstrong, Jimmy Doolittle and
> Robin Olds, of
> course! This is worth just logging onto the site to look at
> it. I may
> eventually consign more autographed lithographs to this
> RRauction.com site
> in the future. I still have over 20 lithographs at home.
> Robin kept them
> rolled up and stored in mailing tubes - all in excellent
> condition.
>
> The memorabilia collection contains all his papers and
> items saved since
> West Point, including battle maps, commemorative silver
> mugs, plaques,
> awards, uniforms, flight suits, squadron patches,
> photographs, scrapbooks,
> autographed biographies, caps, monogrammed shirts,
> insignia, official
> (now-declassified) Pentagon reports and interviews,
> diaries, letters, plus
> well over 200 military history and aviation books, most
> signed to Robin by
> the author.
>
> If I tried to do this all by myself, I'd spend the next
> two years listing
> things online piece-by-piece, dealing with buyers and then
> packing and
> shipping. There's just no way for me to do that and
> hold down my job or have
> a life. Manion's International Auction House is going
> to bring a truck and
> pack and pick everything up, appraise each piece and list
> as a special
> "Robin Olds Collection" auction on their home
> page, plus do a big media
> announcement about the auction. The items are scheduled to
> be picked up from
> here the first week of June and will be online by the end
> of June/first of
> July. I will send out another reminder before that auction
> goes online.
>
> In the meantime, I am listing several items on the
> Manion's
> "List-it-Yourself" store section of their website
> starting Tuesday morning,
> May 12 and will continue to add a few pieces a week as time
> allows. These
> are very specific to Wings, squadrons and USAFA and I'm
> hoping that Robin's
> former pilots and friends might want a piece of his
> memorabilia for home
> dens, basement bars or O-Clubs. Enter www.manions.com and
> click on "Stores".
> It will be listed as The Estate of Robin Olds.
>
> My dearest wish is to hold onto his framed medals, complete
> with all their
> accompanying certificates until the very last and then
> donate them to a
> museum. My sister and daughter and I will be keeping only a
> few photographs
> and one or two personal items each. That's OK.
> There's no way to store all
> of this. The memorabilia belongs with all of you. I'm
> just sorry that I
> can't give it away. It is sad for me to do this,
> because of Robin's and my
> plans to donate all, but it's also OK, because
> there's just no way I could
> handle storing and dispensing all of this over the years
> ahead. I'm hoping
> that some Robin admirers will purchase items and donate to
> the many large
> and small aviation museums around the country for tax
> write-offs.
>
> At some point in the near future, I'll be launching a
> website named
> www.robinolds-fighterpilot.com. I am hoping to turn the
> website into a
> great, ongoing informational and fighter pilot community
> site, with links to
> squadrons, museums, forums and wings around the world.a
> place where Air
> Force and Aviation buffs can gather and talk to each other.
>
> If any of you have any suggestions on other ways to get
> this done, please
> feel free to let me know. In the meantime, wish me luck!
>
> Sending love and thanks to all,
>
> Christina Olds
>
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