American pickers

**HD1450** · 10-30-2011, 04:53 PM

I watch this programme & can't believe these guys.....they are on the road looking for stuff they can make a buck on , so they go into someones barn that is chocca block with loads of goodies with reasonable prices from the seller & they eventually come out with like 3/4 items & leave for another destination

. Now if i was a picker i would be buying as much as i could afford while i was there would'nt you ?

**colt45** · 10-30-2011, 04:58 PM

they don't know about Japan helmets or old cars

**ObKrieger** · 10-30-2011, 05:42 PM

Well, they have to keep the show interesting. They probably get more money from the History Channel anyway. haha

They do lack knowledge of militaria. It would do them well to learn, but I must admit that I don't know anything about the other stuff they buy. Bicycles look like a fun collecting experience, but where are you going to put them?

**Sir Payne** · 07-08-2012, 02:02 AM

One year later... I was just re-watching a few episodes and saw that Japanese Type 90 that was brought back from Iwo Jima. I'm interested to know what they payed for it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was still sitting in their shop with a $100 price tag!

Corey

**Wagriff** · 07-08-2012, 03:04 AM

In the long run, these kind of shows actually hurt the collectors. Antiques Roadshow started it by convincing every Tom, Dick and Harry that they owned Treasures because "They had one on Antiques Roadshow and it looked Just Like Mine!" Except...no it didn't. The 10,000 dollar pocket watch they appraised was a solid 18K gold with a 23 Jewels movement and was owned by a US president with Papers...Your watch is a 1950 tin cased dollar pocket watch from a Dime Store in Kansas City. When I owned my store, I was always Constantly hearing people say such things, and they would end up acting like I was trying to rob their daughters college fund or grandma's chemotherapy money. Pawn Stars is about the worst of the lot at the moment. The show is totally staged and most of the time, the person with the item doesn't even Own it-they just selected them from the crowd because they looked interesting.(Ever notice the between segments bits that show the store being jammed with people? Where are all the crowds when they appraise an item...you only see a person or 2 in the far distance..) Then, insult on insult, out trots the old Mush Mouth of an owner who looks at a superb and rare item and mumbles "Five bucks!" "Can you at least do 6 dollars?" "Five bucks...cash money...dollar bills..." Nice guy. Or, if the person is Really lucky, they might be served by the too stupid to wipe his own nose "Chumly", who seems to think that everything brought into the shop is a toy to be played with(except he seems to have a Heinous amount of automatic assault weapons he likes to shoot...). For running a big time pawn shop in Vegas for years, these slobs sure don't seem to ever know anything about anything, but always have to call in "an expert" to explain to them what the thing they're looking at is. Ridiculous.
But then there's American Pickers. These 2 clowns supposedly drive all over the country spending thousands of dollars in gasoline and time and miles to make a couple of dollars every so often. For something different, they go traipsing onto some crazy garbage hoarder's property and end up digging out a solid rusted lump of cast iron from the ground and giving the lunatic owner a thousand dollars for it because it's "a rare old motorcycle part" or some other piece of rusted out crap. (Just how Do you clean up an old porcelain and tin sign that has huge chips and heavy rust on it?) In the meanwhile, you see all sorts of interesting looking things in the background like helmets, railroad lanterns and who knows what else, that they totally ignore while swooning over an bicycle frame that's missing both wheels and the gear, that they had to shovel out of the dirt and haggle the price of it down to a mere 800 bucks. All these shows do is convince the crazy people out there hoarding their junk that they're sitting on a fortune and to guard it even more diligently. Just try going up to the old hairy guy in the tobacco stained coveralls(and beard) and asking him about that old helmet he's watering the chickens out of, After he's encountered these 2 basthoons. Maybe he'll Think about taking a grand for it....But hey, you can always put a patch over the rust holes in the top, dust it off a little and you, Too, could have a fine treasure. You feel like telling him, "Buddy, keep your thousand dollar junk and enjoy it. When they dig your body out from under that rat infested rubbish heap someday, I'll attend the clearance sale they have and buy it for 2 bucks." On the Bright side, though, they Do have a helluva hot girl that works with them. Sometimes you even get to see her go out on the road..
If all this isn't bad enough, there's endless previews of even More shows of this ilk coming out soon. And don't get me started on the "storage locker fake buffoons"...Looks like finding decent stuff in the wild and in the woodwork may well be a soon to be thing of the past...Thanks much, pickers, pawn shops, and the rest of you rip offs....Okey...I'll shut up now....

**Sir Payne** · 07-08-2012, 03:35 AM

hahaha very well said. Speaking of Pawn Stars, I once saw an episode where some guy brought in a V44, and Rick didn't think it was an original issued knife. Without an expert in there to help him he would have probably passed it up for $25.00! Of course it was probably set up anyway, and the producers knew what it was all along. I hate how on one episode they purposefully staged some guy bringing in Nazi porcelain, just so they could show Rick pass on it because it was "controversial". I can't stand politically correct garbage such as this. Don't even get me started on the History channel. It has more to do with aliens and the supernatural then it does with actual history.