HMI Services

Historic Military Impressions provides several services to include the following:

  • Exhibits & Lectures
  • G.I. Joe at your Birthday Party
  • Military Appraisals
  • Military Shadow Boxes
  • Military Artifact & Tent Rentals

Learn more about these service below or call us at (262) 654-5335 or sent us a email to cbogar@hmihistory.com

Exhibits & Lectures:

Carl Bogar at Harborside AcademyThe staff of Historic Military Impressions started doing military history exhibits in August 1994 and historical lectures in 1997.  Today, we have conducted over 350 military displays, lectures and speeches.

Historic Military Impressions can provide your school or origination a museum quality exhibits or lecture custom made to fit you needs.  Our most common topic areas have covered:

  • Greek and Roman military and history
  • World War Two
  • Korea
  • Vietnam
  • Operation Desert Storm
  • The War on Terror
  • The Compass, Land Navigation and math in the U.S. Military 

Historic Military Impressions has been called upon to provide our service for many originations for many reasons the most common are:

  • Birthdays
  • School fundraisers
  • School augmented learning
  • Special events
  • Themed parties
  • Veterans activities
  • Any thing or reason you or your organization is planning 

G.I. Joe at your Birthday Party:

Birthday Party Entertainment for kids who have outgrown Bozo 

Historic Military Impressions’ G.I. Joe at your birthday party is designed for the child that has outgrown the clown or magician and has moved into that army phase.  You can have a Military Historian entertain your child and his or her friends while teaching them a lesson in history.

These presentations can be as little as a single Military Historian wearing a period correct dress or combat uniform for as little as one hour to a full camp set up with tents and equipment for the full day.

With Historic Military Impressions’ G.I. Joe at Your Birthday Party program we can prepare a custom event that will meet the need of any family budget.

The G.I. Joe at Your Birthday Party program has also been used to bring in artifacts for the veteran family member to better share their military history with their children or grandchildren.

 Our Impressions:

  • A Roman Centurion from the first or second century.
  • A British Commando from World War Two.
  • A United States G.I. from World War Two.
  • A Russian Soldier from World War Two.
  • An American Soldier from the Vietnam War.

 Services & Fees:

  • With Historic Military Impressions’ G.I. Joe at Your Birthday Party program we can prepare a custom event that will meet the need of any family budget. 
  • The shortest time one of our staff will come out is one (1) hour.
  • Each event is custom to the needs of the host.

Military Appraisals:

  • Why should I have my military items appraised?

The best reason to have your items appraised is to have a better understanding of a member of your family who served in the military.  Most military veterans share little of their military service with their families.  This could give you a better understanding of your family history.

Historic Military Impressions can also help you discover more about you family members service. We can conduct a freedom of information request to access copies of records from that national Records Center in St. Louis, MO or the National Archives in Washington D.C.  This can allow you access to their DD-214, service record, and in some cases photos for your family member while in military service.

The primary reason to have an appraisal is to make a better decision.  By having your items appraised you will better understand what you have.  This will allow you to make a better decision on what to do with the items.  To enrich your family history, donate to a museum, or sell the items to pay bills, and appraisal will help you to make a better educated decision.

  • What is our background?

Carl A. Bogar, Jr. founded Historic Military Impressions in 2000.  Carl started collecting military artifacts in 1974 when his grandfather, Howard Johnson gave him a World War Two German helmet. From that single item given to him at the age of five, his collection has grown to over 37,000 inventoried items.

Carl earned his BA is history in 2000 from Carthage College in Kenosha, WI and his MA in military history in 2009 from Norwich University in Northfield, VT.  In 1997 he was a instructor at the United States Military Academy located at West Point, NY.  Today Carl provides classes for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside’s, Continuing Education Department on history, collecting, and job search strategies. 

Carl has been working with original military artifacts for over twenty years.  He has been asked to appraise the value of  and authenticity of military artifacts for many originations, shops and for insurance purposes.  Carl’s primary focus is World War One, World War Two and Vietnam.

Kenosha News 2Kenosha News 1Click on images to read articles about Carl that were in the Kenosha News.

Matt Christiansen is a member of staff of Historic Military Impressions.  In 2008 Matt earned his BA in history from the University of Wisconsin Parkside.  Matt is our expert in Soviet military artifacts.  Matt holds a commission with the Wisconsin National Guard and he has 15 years of experience of dealing with military artifacts.

 What is the normal cost?

Our service price structure is based on the required level of service and number of items that need to be appraised.  The past normal range has been $10.00 for one single item to $100.00 for a normal grouping.  However  for a freedom of records request our price range starts at $100.00 to cover the cost of fees charge by the government.

Military Shadow Boxes:

Historic Military Impressions offers the service of creation of military shadow boxes for the display of items from your past service.  A shadow box will allow you to display in your home or work office eye-catching memorabilia for your military or civilian service.  In fact anything can be mounted for display in a shadow box.

Historic Military Impressions only used Acid-free material and non-adhesive means to display your items.  This allows you the ability to remove items from the box without damage to the artifacts.  We believe in this process because  our first concern is the historic preservation of military artifacts to be passed on to your children and grandchildren.  This is the same process that we use to mount our artifact for public display in our museum and class programs.

If your items ever fall free we will fix your shadow box with no additional Charge.

A Shadow box will make a great gift for the loved one that is hard to shop for.  It will also allow them to proudly display their history on a wall for all to see instead of in a drawer out of sight and lost.

Items that can be placed in a shadow box: 

  • Uniform jackets
  • Personnel affects
  • Basically any item that will fit
  • Shadow boxes can be made for non-military items too.
    • School
    • Job
    • Baby’s keepsakes
    • Award

Military Artifact &Tent Rentals:

Historic Military Impressions rents military artifact and tent for special actions and class projects.  This service allows your to save money and helps your student get a betters grade.  What buy something for hundreds of dollars for a one day use if you do not have to.

if your renting a large tent, Historic Military Impressions can also set it up and take it down for you.

We have tents starting from two man pup-tents to large GP medians which are 17′ x 33′.