American Pickers

[sipowicz]

Anyone else like this show? It's on the history channel...two guys roam around the country buying "junk" and turning a profit on it...I love following them into some old barn or shed and seeing what's in there....you also learn a lot about Americana....

 

[klondike]

I like it but it makes me a little ill when I see how valuable junk can be. I usually load up a scrap trailer and sell it bulk.

 

[PMRet]

Excellent new show, comes on right before another one of my favorites, Pawn Stars.

 

[Bruce51]

Yep. Finally something fun to watch on Mondays. Amazing the items people have stuck out in the barn or items they have restored.

I never heard of an APE/Vespa before the show. How about that Metro?
Junk or treasure this is the stuff that made America.

Bruce

 

[cobra44]

I really like the show. Some of the values that they place on the stuff is sometimes questionable.
I have been doing this for many years in my spare time, and it is getting very hard to find good stuff anymore.

 

[gunnut44]

I only watched it a couple times. It looks good so far. I am a collector of old gas station stuff and old bottles and signs so I can kind of relate to the show. I would love to go through some of those old barns also!

 

[charlie sherrill]

I'm into the old bottles and signs. It's amazing the stuff you can sometimes pick up off the side of the road and sell to a shop or on line. Don't make a lot at it but it's fun. I upgrade or keep stuff I don't have. I also like metel detecting and digging in very old trash dumps and privy holes.

 

[truckemup97]

I've seen a couple of the shows. I grew up around barns like they pick through, although they wouldn't have picked through ours. They would have been escorted to the highway at the point of a shotgun....

 

[handejector]

I never heard of an APE/Vespa before the show.
Bruce

careful now- I ride one to the forum everyday.

 

[35Rem]

Yep! Cool show. I'd love to do what they do. I like that they show the people who tell them to shove off, too.

 

[kennyb]

i like it as well....cool seeing all that old,neat stuff and the cash it brings

 

[Bruce51]

careful now- I ride one to the forum everyday.

I was afraid I might get such a responce from the word.

It's pronounced Ah Pee which is Italian for bee according to the translator. Vespa means wasp.
Basically it is a scooter with a two seat covered passenger cabin.

Bruce

 

[JOliver]

I like it ...I really liked the old guy with the White Castle in his yard...the carriages he had was UNREAL ...I was watching it and the general store was neat ...he had some really "cool stuff" but those carriages blew me away.

Jason

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Love it. I'm addicted to the stores on the country roads that are filled with "junk" My kids call them crap stores-I can spend hours poking around them. Not to much on Pawn Stars though-When I am flipping through the guide channel without my glasses, it always reads porn stars and I get all excited until I go to the channel and realize it's about those big lugs in the pawn shop. The old man does crack me up though.

 

[whitecoyote]

Anyone else like this show? It's on the history channel...two guys roam around the country buying "junk" and turning a profit on it...I love following them into some old barn or shed and seeing what's in there....you also learn a lot about Americana....

Excellent show.
Very interesting, and educational.

 

[n4zov]

I'm waiting for the show where they find a barn full of old Registered Magnums all in their original boxes with certificates and test targets and the old geezer sells them for $25 each.

 

[george minze]

Vespa were in this country a long time ago. I believe in the 50s. They were what you got if you couldn't find a Cushman. Cushman were a heavy brutish looking motor scooter unlike the girlie looking Vespa....that was the theory when kids wore Converse and pegged their already tight Levies (made in America then) pulled up their collars and had a ducks Butt haircut. Damn I'm old....What a novel thought Levies made in America. Shrink to fit, how strange is that?

 

[MK]

I'm into the old bottles and signs. It's amazing the stuff you can sometimes pick up off the side of the road and sell to a shop or on line. Don't make a lot at it but it's fun. I upgrade or keep stuff I don't have. I also like metel detecting and digging in very old trash dumps and privy holes.

We were just talking about privy digging on another detector forum
recently..
Some think it sounds crazy to go poking around 100+ year old doo-doo
receptacles looking for bottles and such, but I'm crazy enough to like
stuff like that. :/ I like finding anything that's real old.
Here is one privy digger site, and he's got a links page to plenty of
others.
Some of those are a gold mine for bottles and such.. And it's kind of
weird.. They often find a doll or dolls head in a lot of those.. :/
Seems the little ones would lose their toys in those from time to time.
I've been metal detecting for about four years. I also watch the
show Sip is talking about from time to time.. Saw it a couple of nights
ago.
Eddie's Privy Page

 

[rondo]

It's a good show, kinda fits in with the Antiques Road Show and Pawn Stars. I never woulda thunk I would enjoy looking at other peoples stuff.

 

[ladder13]

Great show, love the scenes and vistas of "rural" America. Anyone know where they're based out of? I think the upper Midwest or nearby.

 

[truckemup97]

Great show, love the scenes and vistas of "rural" America. Anyone know where they're based out of? I think the upper Midwest or nearby.

From what I could tell, they're somewhere in Iowa.

 

[walkinghorse]

LeClaire, Iowa on the Mississippi River, just north of I80.

Antique Archaeology, professional picker of antiques, motorcycles, LeClaire, Iowa

 

[don95sml]

Very entertaining show. I guess I'm not a collector, though, because I would never consider paying what they do for an old rusty whatever.

 

[vytoland]

Class A American Pickers

Class A American Pickers

YouTube - Flatt + Scruggs + Maybelle Carter - Foggy Mountain Top

 

[MMA10mm]

Very entertaining show. I guess I'm not a collector, though, because I would never consider paying what they do for an old rusty whatever.

You've got to have a customer base, which they do. A lot of the stuff they pick is in certain categories - bicycles, oil cans, tin signs, industrial accessories, etc. They have particular collectors that will buy stuff they find in certain categories, as well as movie prop houses which buy from them. Lastly, the one guy seems to have some connections with antique dealers and interior decorators, because he's always looking for something that can be the "focal point" of a room...

Just buying stuff to sit on and wait and see if it goes up (like an antique dealer) can be dicey. They turn over their buys pretty darn quickly, which is how they are able to keep their costs paid and give themselves a salary. They can't afford to sit on stuff very long at all.

 

[Noah Zark]

Class A American Pickers

YouTube - Flatt + Scruggs + Maybelle Carter - Foggy Mountain Top

I was picturing that, or someone with a digit inserted into an olfactory orifice.

Noah

 

[ThirtyAcres]

...............and it is getting very hard to find good stuff anymore.

So true.

People looking for stuff to sell on Ebay and Craig's List has reduced the supply on the items I look for at estate sales and book sales.

 

[ElToro]

antique roadshow, they are not buying or selling just appraising and giving a history lesson on cool items. usually once per show thye have to tell somebody they have a fake piece of junk

pawn stars, they are a pawn shop you know going in your gonna get 50-75 of the value of something and at least they tell you if its junk. and Pawnstars seem to at elast tell you what the real value is, just your not getting there. your free to walk out and try to sell at auction

these American Picker guys seem to be a little bit of vultures. they mostly prey on old guys who have tons of junk in their yard/barn and give them very low ball offers. now, these old guys are likely to die with all their junk and the family will end up junking or yard saleing the difference.

just like pawn stars, they nver show them actually selling the stuff they buy just what they think its worth

i also like meteorite men and mantracker