American Pickers
- Thread starter Anduril
- Start date
Nowhere Man
Commodore
Well it's hoarding in some cases I guess, but there are a lot of junk dealers and collectors out there. My Mom was an antique seller and had her own store. She was not a hoarder, but did have a garage full of furniture that was bieng sold or held to be sold. The house was spotless though. Anyway, we had to drive around like these guys and look for shit. She didn't care for most of them, they will try to rip you off and they mostly have junk, but if you look long enough you'll find something good. I wouldn't clasify them hoarders like you see on A&E because the don't live in complete filth. They have thier junk yard and that is seperate from thier house which is ussually pretty normal. It's one thing to have clutter or collectiables and another to have dead cats lying underneath stacks of trash, underneath piles of clothes, underneath a bunch of toys, underneath newspapers, underneath dirty dishes, ect.. Oh, and these guys come off a little on the gay side, not that there's anything wrong with that.
I guess it became popular enough, because Canada has its own version now. I've seen the American version a bit and it's kind of interesting in a way, but I don't really see the need for a Canadian version. Just another show that Canada rides on the coattails of.
It's funny, my gaydar has went off numerous times watching the show. It seems to me that the people they visit have the same reasons for keeping their junk as hoarders do. Who knows what these peoples houses look like on the inside. It would seem that anyone who buys whole buildings just to fill them up again has a problem.
I think these guys are rip off artists. If they walked up to me and offered me $500 for an old rusted Pepsi sign. I would refuse because it would be obvious they know the sign is worth much more. I would then spend the time researching it and trying to sell it for more than $500.
No. You wouldn't. If you ran a farm would you start making pizza and burgers because the restaurants are giving you less for your product? Again, no you wouldn't. Selling niche items is extremely hard if you don't know the market and chances are, you don't know the market and even with the research, finding buyers is really hard. They also occasionally have to restore items to sell them, which costs money before they can sell them, so that also factors into the price. I mean, you can put in the time and research and try to sell it, but chances are you'll have an old rusted pepsi sign for a very long time.
They also have a store. To run a store you have to make a profit and pay their employes (I'd be willing to be that it's more than just the two of them and Danielle). But that's how things work. I used to sell books to a used bookstore. Did I call them con artists because I didn't get the full three dollars that they were selling my book for? No. I was happy getting a little less because I had better things to do than try to sell my books for full price myself. That's how stores work.
Yes I would since I do that now. I have the time and money to research items I have , fix them up, and to get top dollar for them. I go to garage sales, flea markets and antique stores all the time looking for deals. I once had an old 1920 tulip style bronze lamp with all the original bulbs and was offered $400 for it from an antique dealer. I refused, did the research on it and was able to sell it for over $1500 to another collector who still has it displayed in his home. So yes I would do that.
Yeah, it sounds almost exactly like what they do.
A
Amaris
Guest
These guys price rather fairly, actually. Anytime you can get close to 50% of resale, you're doing good.
I admit I haven't seen a bunch of episodes, but from the few I have seen, it doesn't look like they're making crazy profits on a lot of the stuff they buy. Yes, they are making money, but it's not like they're buying something for $50 and then turning it around and selling it for $5000 while laughing maniacally in the shadows.
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Amaris
Guest
They've been known to go back and give money to the previous owner if they feel they've made such a huge profit off of the item. I've actually seen it happen once, on TV, and I've heard about the others.
I'm a big fan of this show. As I've mentioned here before, while I don't know Frank Fritz, only meeting him once in passing, I've known Mike Wolfe for several years, and I actually edited some of the pitch footage that he sent around to various channels to try and sell it. At the time, it was just him doing it on his own with his live-in girlfriend back then; his girlfriend stayed at home and did the phone calls / research while he was on the road (and he's definitely straight, the guy is one of the biggest horndogs I've ever met).
He also was trying to sell the show with the "Antique Archaeology" title. After Discovery sat on the show for a year and then ultimately passed on it, History Channel said it was interested, but said that there needed to be a second personality on the show, which is where Frank came in (they were childhood friends), and they didn't like the title. So the show was dubbed American Pickers, and Wolfe decided to actually get a warehouse space, instead of working out of his house, and dubbed it "Antique Archaeology." (Although he originally spelled it "Archeology.")
Like I said, I don't know Frank well at all. We chatted once at a press mixer for about five minutes. But Mike is one of the most awesome guys I've ever met.
He also was trying to sell the show with the "Antique Archaeology" title. After Discovery sat on the show for a year and then ultimately passed on it, History Channel said it was interested, but said that there needed to be a second personality on the show, which is where Frank came in (they were childhood friends), and they didn't like the title. So the show was dubbed American Pickers, and Wolfe decided to actually get a warehouse space, instead of working out of his house, and dubbed it "Antique Archaeology." (Although he originally spelled it "Archeology.")
Like I said, I don't know Frank well at all. We chatted once at a press mixer for about five minutes. But Mike is one of the most awesome guys I've ever met.
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Amaris
Guest
Yep. It was the episode about the amusement park. They bought some gorilla and magician signs for $700 total from a guy who was trying to rebuild the park. Well, a short time later Danielle manages to sell the signs for $10,000! Frank and Mike are ecstatic, talk about it for a minute, and decide that the amusement park owner deserves some of that, so they travel back and hand him $5,000.
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