Tiger Thomas, of Worthington, said he used to work with Labbee at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction.
It was Labbee, he says, who sold the van to the pickers.Įfforts to reach Labbee for comment were unsuccessful. “You’re kidding! This is the first time that I am hearing about this!” he said Tuesday.Īccording to Recos, Lehman sold the property some years back to Phill Labbee, who now resides in Easthampton. “You would think that I would have seen them go by, but I didn’t,” he said.Įd Severance, who lives in the center of town and is chairman of the Board of Assessors, also said he had no idea that the show was in Chesterfield Recos said he was surprised that he had not heard about the show coming to town, especially as he lives so close to the property. Mike Wolfe, one of the pickers on the show, called the van “a piece of American rock ‘n’ roll history.” “We watch it sometimes but we didn’t see that show and I didn’t know they were here.” “One of our kids told us about it being on the show,” Nancy Recos said.
Recos said she began to search for the photos after hearing that the van had been featured on “American Pickers.” “I have the pictures somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find them.” “I thought it was really interesting that it belonged to this band that was quite famous,” Nancy Recos said. “I thought, holy mackerel, is that for real?” he said.ĭespite Lehman’s private nature, Recos said he and Nancy got his permission to go look at the van, and the couple went out to see it a few times and take photographs. Recos said he came across the van covered in vines and brush while he was out hunting and had gotten lost about a half a mile from his house in the late 1980s. “He was a kind of hermit living in the woods with no phone and he had these big dogs on chains outside, so nobody really went up there,” Recos said. Recos described Lehman as rough around the edges, a private person who had many items strewn about the property and left out in the elements. “The other he just left out in the woods and there it sat.” “He said he kept one in a garage, but I never saw that one and don’t know what happened to that,” Recos said. Recos said that Lehman, who used to live at the property in a “very small rustic cabin,” had kept two tour vans there after they were no longer in use. Select Board member Robert Recos and his wife, Nancy, however, accidentally became aware of the iconic vehicle more than 30 years ago.Īccording to Recos, the property off Soaker Road where the 1960s International Harvester Metro Van sat rusting for decades once belonged to Mark Lehman, who was manager of Aerosmith when they formed in Boston in 1970.Īerosmith’s van was recently sold for $25,000 to Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz of the History Channel’s “American Pickers.” Ray Tabano, a founding member of Aerosmith, confirmed it was the van the rockers used in the 1970s. CHESTERFIELD - The original Aerosmith tour van that rested in the woods of Chesterfield was a well-kept secret from most residents.