Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire American Pickers

Sitting here on the 'fire and the wife is watching the show. She just burst out laughing and said she couldn't believe what one of the guys said. I asked what it was:

"It's so hot up here, even the squirrels are handling their nuts with potholders."

Apparently they were scrounging around in some barn and the heat affected the thought process.

Yikes!

Them boys need psychological help!

I like them a great deal better than most of the other 'reality' show people--I don't follow any but have seen episodes here and there--. On one AP segment they showed them buying something they weren't sure was very valuable, but ended up being just that. It was like they spent $300 and found it was worth $10K or something on that order. What'd they do? Went back and split the profit with the senior they'd bought it from. Quite refreshing, if real, especially compared to say, the Pawn Stars vermin. I know business is business, but that one dude'd cheat his own mother out of a square deal, looks like.

I like the show.

Pretty good show seeing all that old stuff.

I like the show. I don't have cable or the dish, but will watch it when I get a change to. It's not too drama filled like a lot of the new show.

The guys seem to be fair guys too.

my sons and I watch it whenever we can. my you gets boy wants to be a picker when he grows up.

I enjoy the pickers. Guess cause I have an interesting friend that does just that. After college he worked for the TX highway dept. as an anthropologist researching and digging up historical sites before construction took place. Now days he does just what those guys are doing running all over with a U-hall type truck and sometimes with a trailer.
Another interesting show is the guys that research past meteor showers and dig em up from some farmers field and sell for some really big bucks.

Leighton? I didn't know that about those guys (splitting the profits with the previous older owner). That makes me like them even more. They don't seem like they are out to rip anyone off just make a profit on things. My 8 and 9 year old boys like watching the show with me.

Tzone, check out HULU or if you have netflix or amazon prime I bet you can catch slightly older episodes of the show on the internet. A buddy at work watches Top shot that way.

I watch them, Yes they have gave back, a few times and have donated some things also! Not bad, for whats on TV today!

The ones that kill me are the Storage War shows. I saw one episode where the bald headed tattooed guy named Ton found an old run of the mill Browning A-5 and immediately proclaimed it to be worth 3,000 dollars. Seems a tad high to me.

You think they need help, wait until you see the new show that's coming out. Was over at a friends house last night and saw a teaser for a new reality show called.....wait for it......."Pit Bulls and Parolees"! I chit you not!

Some old greenie gal is spouting some crap about how pitbulls and parolees are just misunderstood and need a second chance yada, yada, yada....

So help me I wanted to shoot her TV....

You guys do know that every move, every line, and every action is scripted on all of these so-called "reality" shows, right?

You see stuff like giving back, it makes you feel good (about the show), and you continue to watch.

And if you knew what they were getting paid for each episode,you'd know they can afford to "give back"....

another non reality reality show, fit only for morons.

Exactly.

You can't buy into the bullshit story these "reality" shows spin. It's about 99.99% Hollywood hype. I talked to a mechanic a while back at one of the power plants I monitor. He's a big Winchester collector and was laughing about this other Winchester collector/dealer he knows in southern California. This southern California person derives a large portion of his current business by supplying the producers of some of these "reality" shows like "Storage Wars" and whatever in the hell that damned auction hunter show on Discovery/TLC is called. (And likely other shows as well.) These producers come up with a story arc and contact various suppliers with their wants. The suppliers in turn sell or lease them various old guns, memorabilia, furniture, tools, etc. The producers then have this stuff staged in a barn, storage unit, house or whatever and film their episodes right along with the mock surprise and shock. They complete filming and then return the items or sell them back minus any damage or wear that occurred during production.

Reality? Not. Every one of the shows is scripted. It's TV.

i got no doubt that in order to maintain the "show", that the TV pickers resort to some hollywood tricks...
and i don't know these guys, but they are located a half hour drive away... one BIL drove over there to meet them and feels like they are the real deal...

"picking" in the rural midwest is a common and competitive game... most of the guys on my wife's side of the family are involved, some more than others...
they are typical 50s and 60s kids who remember the cool stuff that used to be around, and more or less have a clue where some of it wound up... they mostly came from farm families with sheds,attics and porches full of old "junk"... picking started off as a friendly grown up "show and tell"... then guys started showing their stuff in booths at tractor and toy shows...

the oldest BIL and his wife were both farm kids, and are typical pickers... her dad, at 91, still works as a cabinet and furniture maker, and gets into a lot of different homes, barns and sheds in his daily routine... he tips them off to a lot of neat stuff...

at times i could almost get excited about picking myself, but i have other pursuits...

as to them giving back a part of greater than expected profits, i can believe it... 2 1/2 years ago, after some serious surgery i was off work for nearly a year... i had to sell some silver coins to make ends meet, and i went to a private party with most of it...
now, i am not a coin collector, and neither is the guy i sold to, but he's been buying and selling since the 70s... he's picked up a little knowledge along the way...
i sold 2 small lots of coins to him a month or so apart, and on the second sale, he looked over the coins and remarked that some might have collector value... he thought that maybe i'd reconsider and keep them, but i was determined to sell... he wasn't sure of what they were worth, but he paid me market price for their silver value, and we parted...
3 weeks or so later, he called me and asked me to drop by... i stopped at his place a couple of days later, and he laid another $200 in my hand... he had sold them to a collector, and knowing i was off work and feeling pressure for money, he did a remarkably graceful thing in sharing his fortune with me...
there is still good in this world....

I watch it off and on, but think it Jumped the Shark when they were hired by Shatner to furnish his place in Tenn (?) or the Pawn Star guys to find a 57 Chevy.