(Topic ID: 245379)

American pickers,smart businessmen or greedy

By trumpy

4 years ago


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Topic Stats

  • 131 posts
  • 66 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 4 years ago by AlexF
  • Topic is favorited by 5 Pinsiders

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    Topic poll

    “American pickers,smart businessmen or greedy”

    • Smart business 84 votes
      71%
    • Greed 34 votes
      29%

    (118 votes)

    There are 131 posts in this topic. You are on page 2 of 3.
    #51 4 years ago

    Reality TV is not real. These guys could care less about the money they make off of items now. They make boatloads of money off of the show itself. Frank and Mike are good guys that got lucky and hit the jackpot. I am happy for them and i like the show, but its all fake and staged. Its still interesting to watch though.

    #52 4 years ago

    I always thought the American Pickers and Hoarders shows should merge. No way a building was packed with that much stuff, good stuff and garbage, just for the sake of a "show". Maybe the transactions are staged but certainly not the hoarder aspect.

    #53 4 years ago
    Quoted from xsvtoys:

    why do they buy 2 things?

    lol. I said that to my TV set several times and got no reply....when they have a great "pick" they literally should back a truck up to the barn and empty it if they are stocking multiple stores.

    #54 4 years ago
    Quoted from KozMckPinball:

    I always thought the American Pickers and Hoarders shows should merge. No way a building was packed with that much stuff, good stuff and garbage, just for the sake of a "show". Maybe the transactions are staged but certainly not the hoarder aspect.

    I can't speak for anyone else or other episodes but none of the transactions I had with them were staged. Maybe I should have asked for more but I still have a lot of things to find homes for.

    If you've noticed the items they highlight on the show happen to be ones they can talk about and explain some of the history. Other items may not be shown at all.

    #55 4 years ago

    Saying it's fake is too simplistic. It's TV so of course it's produced, planned, and it's not as spontaneous as it appears. But one can know this and still watch it for the aspects that are authentic: the interesting people they meet, the places they travel, the collections they view, the items discussed, and the history presented.

    #56 4 years ago

    Its more authentic than Pawn Stars.That show is fake as hell.

    #57 4 years ago

    So when you go on the interwebs and look up AP fake a lot of stories come up. Heres the thing though. All the stories claiming AP was totally fake are not well known proven sources like national newspapers. Mike from AP pickers has disputed these stories saying the show has minimal staging. I see no actual proof in these totally fake stories. I think it is very possible that the stories are faker than the the actual show. Remember your sources are very important. Literally anyone on the internet can have a website. Way too many people these days taking one or two stories from questionable sources and taking them as gospel. People should dig in a bit more to find truth.

    #58 4 years ago

    Remember these guys are getting paid by the history Channel as well. That keeps them afloat even if they suffer a loss on a pick.

    It's not like they are doing the TV show for free.

    Entertainment is all it is. They turned their hobby into a profitable career. Even if they lose. They still get a paycheck.

    #59 4 years ago
    Quoted from cottonm4:

    Would you like to run that math by me again?
    What would your profit be if you bought for $300.00 and sold for $900.00? That's plus $600.00. What would that be, profit percentage wise?

    You're assuming any money they get is "Profit". There are costs involved in running a business.

    #60 4 years ago
    Quoted from jackd104:

    Saying it's fake is too simplistic. It's TV so of course it's produced, planned, and it's not as spontaneous as it appears. But one can know this and still watch it for the aspects that are authentic: the interesting people they meet, the places they travel, the collections they view, the items discussed, and the history presented.

    Sure, yes, no problem. In fact, I have watched the show from the very beginning! All that stuff you said is fine and I get entertained, but overall, it is still fake in all the ways I pointed out. I always figured from day one it wasn't real in the sense that it is the two of them driving around and getting stuff for their store, it just didn't make sense to buy 2 things and load them in a van and also from the beginning the idea of a helicopter following them kind of cracked me up. The phone calls between them and home base are so obviously staged it gets a bit annoying. Its fake in that sense, but as I said, the people they go visit are real. Some of the collections are amazing. I tend to FF a lot of it these days, mainly because it is getting kind of repetitive and there isn't much new anymore. There are only so many oil cans, signs, toy cars, and motorcycle headlights I can take.

    I still remember when I lost my reality show cherry many years ago, I looked it up, its been 20 years! You may remember one of the early "reality" shows called Junkyard Wars, which I used to love. They had two teams and they were tasked to make different stuff every week using only stuff they scavenged from a big junkyard. I thought it was great how creative they had to be to find that stuff and make something that works. Then, one day they had to make a hovercraft. They had everything they needed to make a hovercraft, but there was a dilemma. For the hovercraft to be able to work, it had to have the right skirt to go around it. Where would they find a skirt for their hovercraft? WHERE? I mean, what are the odds that there will be a damn hovercraft skirt tossed into this junkyard??? Then, one of them walks up to an old washing machine, and opens up the lid, and there inside was a .... hovercraft skirt!! WOW! What luck!

    That was the day when the light bulb appeared above my head. Ahh, I get it...fake. They PUT that skirt in there for the show! Duh. Its fake. All the reality shows are fake one way or the other.

    #61 4 years ago

    I know how you feel. When I was in Vegas years ago I thought I would go and check out the "Pawn Stars" store. It was the junkiest place I've ever seen .Really dumpy. They had nothing to sell but T-shirts promoting the show. I really felt like a fool checking it out.

    #62 4 years ago
    Quoted from cottonm4:

    Would you like to run that math by me again?
    What would your profit be if you bought for $300.00 and sold for $900.00? That's plus $600.00. What would that be, profit percentage wise?

    67%

    If you calculate profit as a percentage of the sale price. Which is how most big companies would do it.

    You are probably thinking profit as a percentage of cost. Which would be 200%

    #63 4 years ago
    Quoted from jhanley:

    Its more authentic than Pawn Stars.That show is fake as hell.

    True. Like I'm sure a sizeable crowd of young people (and older ones) like hanging around a Pawn Shop as is always the case on the show.

    #64 4 years ago
    Quoted from T7:

    67%
    If you calculate profit as a percentage of the sale price. Which is how most big companies would do it.
    You are probably thinking profit as a percentage of cost. Which would be 200%

    If you pay $300 for a share of stock and sell it for $900, you'd presumably pay taxes on $600. The return % reported would be $600/$300, or 100% before taxes. Check out your eTrade account for details..

    #65 4 years ago

    There's continuity errors on AP that give things away - like they'll have something in the back of their van during a road scene before they actually have bought it.

    My favorite was Storage Wars where they cut the lock off a unit and some name brand items inside had black gaffer's tape covering the logos

    #66 4 years ago

    Don’t get caught into it, it’s just a show! Rarely watch but find it entertaining.

    #67 4 years ago

    lol...Frank got off with less fine than the dude in Georgia speeding ticket thread...and he was going wrong way loaded:

    DAVENPORT, Iowa — Frank Fritz – one of the co-hosts of the History Channel’s popular American Pickers television show that originated in nearby LeClaire – has pleaded guilty to OWI following a July incident in which police say he drove the wrong way on Interstate 80 under the influence of Xanax and alcohol.

    The plea deal, which was entered in Iowa District Court in Davenport on March 1, is a deferred judgement, which will require Fritz to be on unsupervised probation for one year, pay a fine of $625 plus court costs and to complete a substance evaluation program and follow any recommended treatment.

    #68 4 years ago
    Quoted from benheck:

    My favorite was Storage Wars where they cut the lock off a unit and some name brand items inside had black gaffer's tape covering the logos

    Yep, remember that episode, never watched the show again. All of the boxes in one unit were from a moving company, either Allied or United. They cut the lock, lifted the door, and every box had gaffers tape over the lettering, but not the logo part. That was it, I was done.

    #69 4 years ago
    Quoted from OLDPINGUY:

    one thing is apparent.....One, YOU have never owned a business, to understand expenses,

    I had an upholstery business for 28years.

    14
    #70 4 years ago

    Really enjoying all the speculation, especially the assertion that Danielle’s “real” job is as a burlesque dancer ( she owns a dress shop, dances for a hobby) and that helicopters are used for aerial shots (drones are much cheaper).

    I participated in the filming of an episode; here is how it went...

    An add was put out on radio and newspaper that the Pickers would be coming through, requesting folks with cool collections / antiques to call a production assistant. You are contacted, the collection discussed, pictures of what you have to offer are forwarded, and if they are interested, a pre production team visits. Specific items are chosen and backstory recorded to give the pickets a heads up.

    A schedule is developed and early in the morning, a pre-production team arrives, pics locations and camera angles, gets you mic’d up, and walks through the chain of events for the day. The pickers arrived from their host hotel in separate vehicles, a production assistant drove the van. Everybody walks through the opening dialogue, they get in the van and drive down the road, and the production begins. They do go through collection and find things spontaneously, have off-the-cuff commentary, sometimes work a conversation two or three times to try to elicit a greater response from the non-talent. The bartering is real, but so is their interest in some of the more specific items already targeted. Money did change hands, some of the items were sold in their store, others turned up on eBay. They do need to turn a profit, TV royalties are not the gold depository many people think, but they are certainly doing better than their non-TV days.

    It was a neat experience for the family, in the end, it is entertainment and some facets of it are unapologetically geared towards that, but more times than not, folks are genuine.

    I’d be interested to hear Mike pacek’s experience, since his was more recent.

    #71 4 years ago
    Quoted from OLDPINGUY:

    I stand corrected....my apologies.

    Its actually 2 motorcycles i restored that were made the same day in 1951.....and?

    #72 4 years ago
    Quoted from Darcy:

    Yep, remember that episode, never watched the show again. All of the boxes in one unit were from a moving company, either Allied or United. They cut the lock, lifted the door, and every box had gaffers tape over the lettering, but not the logo part. That was it, I was done.

    Let's just hope they get a close up of lock being cut, let crew tape over logos, and then pretend to open unit. Otherwise, what a waste of locks!

    #73 4 years ago

    Were you greedy for making a profit?

    #74 4 years ago
    Quoted from Rody:

    Really enjoying all the speculation, especially the assertion that Danielle’s “real” job is as a burlesque dancer ( she owns a dress shop, dances for a hobby) and that helicopters are used for aerial shots (drones are much cheaper).
    I participated in the filming of an episode; here is how it went...
    An add was put out on radio and newspaper that the Pickers would be coming through, requesting folks with cool collections / antiques to call a production assistant. You are contacted, the collection discussed, pictures of what you have to offer are forwarded, and if they are interested, a pre production team visits. Specific items are chosen and backstory recorded to give the pickets a heads up.
    A schedule is developed and early in the morning, a pre-production team arrives, pics locations and camera angles, gets you mic’d up, and walks through the chain of events for the day. The pickers arrived from their host hotel in separate vehicles, a production assistant drove the van. Everybody walks through the opening dialogue, they get in the van and drive down the road, and the production begins. They do go through collection and find things spontaneously, have off-the-cuff commentary, sometimes work a conversation two or three times to try to elicit a greater response from the non-talent. The bartering is real, but so is their interest in some of the more specific items already targeted. Money did change hands, some of the items were sold in their store, others turned up on eBay. They do need to turn a profit, TV royalties are not the gold depository many people think, but they are certainly doing better than their non-TV days.
    It was a neat experience for the family, in the end, it is entertainment and some facets of it are unapologetically geared towards that, but more times than not, folks are genuine.
    I’d be interested to hear Mike pacek’s experience, since his was more recent.

    Yeah helicopter comment was funny.

    Interesting that you are the second person here who mentioned they actually had a
    real experience with the AP guys but a bunch of folks choose to not acknowledge what you guys have to say and talk about what they saw on the internet or speculate what they think is fake on AP or talk about some other fake show. Or they just say Fake show like all the rest and be done with it?

    As long as the AP guys travel around the county to real places, actually pick and negotiate with folks for their items to buy for resale and don’t have their own stuff placed at actors houses that is fine with me.

    Thanks for sharing some of the background of how things work.

    #75 4 years ago

    for me best AP episode by far was the carny retirement collective. Mad respect for what they built and lived their lives.

    #76 4 years ago
    Quoted from trumpy:

    Just watched american pickers and cant understand why they dont offer fair prices . Say for an item worth $600 (thier value )the owner wants $450 , they only offer $300 looking at 100% profit , they miss out on all profit, when $400 WOULD BUY IT , they would make some profit and seller would be happy . Instead , everyone misses out .good business or plain GREED. MY VOTE IS GREED!!!!!!!

    The t.v. show about American greed isn't American Pickers. The show is called American Greed.

    If you've ever seen the American Greed episodes, you will no longer feel the need to complain about Mike and Frank making a few bucks on vintage motorcycles and old oil cans.

    #77 4 years ago
    Quoted from OLDPINGUY:

    Were you greedy for making a profit?

    No , i charged a fair hourly rate . Upholstery $50 per hour,, mechanics , tilers , painters etc charge 80 per hour. I sleep well at night

    #78 4 years ago

    Im happy for you.

    I refer to your first post.... MY VOTE IS GREED!!!!!!!.....Unless you know their full accounting, you are making a judgement on their profit.

    I cant speak for anyone as to how much someone earns is greedy....some might say $50 an hour is greedy, others might say capitalism allows untold
    profit...with out it being Greedy....Bezos, Buffet, Gates.....

    Others might decide Greed is based not on accumulated wealth or Net Profit, but on what is done with earnings....Is a person who builds a Hospital,
    or a Hotel, different in Greed? Someone who donates vs someone who doesnt.

    Is it the dollar amount, a judgement of a person and what they do what you feel is the litmus?

    #79 4 years ago

    I haven't seen them personally, but there are a lot of people in my area who have stories of passing them on the highway or having them stop buy to purchase things not as a part of the production. Based on those stories, most seemed to like Mike and disliked Frank. Frank's shop is in Savannah, IL and is quite a dump based on the reviews.

    #80 4 years ago

    I've never really watched the show and don't know much about it, but I see Mike Wolfe all the time and he's a great guy. He's done a lot for our community (Columbia, TN) He's very humble and friendly and down to earth.

    I actually met him backstage at the Ryman in 2012 and talked to him for 30 minutes about music. I had no clue who he was. Someone told me later he had a show.

    #81 4 years ago

    What really bothers me is during a pick,the camera will pan across where they are picking at that time.I usually tape the shows so I can stop and see what is in the backround! I have seen many old,and rare woodrail pins that they don't even look at!! And at one episode,the guy had numerous old pins all around and they went crazy over a old EK,in terrible shape!!

    #82 4 years ago
    Quoted from hawkmoon:

    What really bothers me is during a pick,the camera will pan across where they are picking at that time.I usually tape the shows so I can stop and see what is in the backround! I have seen many old,and rare woodrail pins that they don't even look at!! And at one episode,the guy had numerous old pins all around and they went crazy over a old EK,in terrible shape!!

    They do usually skip the pinballs. The most recent one was that guy who had all the robots. I believe he also had a Pinbot in the background that skimmed by. That would have been a lot cooler than those goofy robots he had.

    #83 4 years ago
    Quoted from hawkmoon:

    What really bothers me is during a pick,the camera will pan across where they are picking at that time.I usually tape the shows so I can stop and see what is in the backround! I have seen many old,and rare woodrail pins that they don't even look at!! And at one episode,the guy had numerous old pins all around and they went crazy over a old EK,in terrible shape!!

    There was one episode where they were all gaga over some rare type of juke box. The juke was the star of the show. For awhile, I was watching "reruns" on Netflix so I don't know if the episodes were in correct order, but there was another episode with one of the same type of rare jukeboxes taking up space in the back ground and not a word was said about it. I thought hat was strange that it at least did not get a mention, like," hey, we bought one of those a few episodes back".

    I'm like you. I like seeing what is sitting around but the cam is moving too fast.

    #84 4 years ago
    Quoted from Insane:

    Technically buying for 300 and selling for 600 is 50% profit. It would be 100% markup, but its only 50% profit. Half of what you sold it for is profit. For it to be 100% profit, it would have to have been free.

    Quoted from cottonm4:

    Would you like to run that math by me again?
    What would your profit be if you bought for $300.00 and sold for $900.00? That's plus $600.00. What would that be, profit percentage wise?

    You are correct. I owe you an apology.

    =============

    Google to the rescue.

    https://www.brattbank.com/bcalc/ProfitMargin.html
    ======================

    Quoted from BeaglePuss:

    Holy Macaroni, you cannot be serious.

    Quoted from punkin:

    Seems people don't understand basic maths.
    My ex used to tell me she 'won' $100 at the slot machines. I'd ask how much she put in to get the $100 out and she'd say $50. She 'won' $50.
    If you had a $10 note and you sold it to someone for $20 you'd make $10 profit. That equates to 50% profit (50% of $20 is $10).
    In the example a couple posts up when someone for some reason used bigger numbers then if you bought something for $300,00 and sold it for $900,000 it would be 66% profit.
    That's how the numbers work. If it was 100% profit you would have to have gotten it for nothing for 100% of the sales price to be profit.
    It's a 200% markup. There's a difference.
    It's all a moot point anyway as it's a TV show and the numbers are just made up.

    No. It is not moot. I threw out some bad info. It needed to be corrected. Bad info. is like a rumor. It gathers a life of its own and it gets hard to determine fact from fiction.

    Quoted from T7:

    67%
    If you calculate profit as a percentage of the sale price. Which is how most big companies would do it.
    You are probably thinking profit as a percentage of cost. Which would be 200%

    Yes.

    Quoted from KozMckPinball:

    If you pay $300 for a share of stock and sell it for $900, you'd presumably pay taxes on $600. The return % reported would be $600/$300, or 100% before taxes. Check out your eTrade account for details..

    Did you mean to say 200% ? The webpage I linked suggests that to me. And that's the way I would look at it when I was doing some trading.

    #85 4 years ago

    Don't forget that American Pickers filmed at TPF 5yrs ago for an appraisal. Here is the story first hand:

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pins-on-american-pickers#post-985133

    #86 4 years ago

    I used to work for a large architectural salvage shop right after college, and met a lot of pickers. Minus the effects of being a tv personality, it’s not a particularly lucrative field. Even when you pick up that $800 pin for $200, you’ve likely spent $100 on gas/car insurance/maintenance/travel/etc. And then you either have to be prepared to house it in your store for potentially months, or sell it at a price to an antique store that allows them to profit after holding on to it for months (paying all their overhead). Just because a knowledgeable buyer would purchase the item for the higher amount doesn’t mean a buyer will come into your business any time soon. And my experience was all pre-EBay, Craigslist etc, which makes it harder now to buy stuff at a cheap price.

    Obviously the show is interesting so participants want to make a deal to be featured. That lets the guys be choosy about what they take. Outside of that spotlight, I’m guessing pickers today make profits by taking full lots off of ppl’s hands and doing all the work of sorting through it.

    #87 4 years ago

    Shipping Wars was the best of these "reality" shows until Roy died.

    #88 4 years ago
    Quoted from SteveO:

    Shipping Wars was the best of these "reality" shows until Roy died.

    I wonder if Jared is still moving B_R 's games around?

    #89 4 years ago

    Whenever I see a 90 year old farmer with 3 barns worth of junk who's barely willing to sell something they pull out of a mud puddle I think of his poor kids who will have to deal with all that once he's gone.

    #90 4 years ago
    Quoted from benheck:

    Whenever I see a 90 year old farmer with 3 barns worth of junk who's barely willing to sell something they pull out of a mud puddle I think of his poor kids who will have to deal with all that once he's gone.

    I went through this actually. I decided to leave it for my kids. Haha. Just kidding. It is a burden and not much fun but once I actually organised all the stuff it's not nearly as bad.

    #91 4 years ago
    Quoted from benheck:

    Whenever I see a 90 year old farmer with 3 barns worth of junk who's barely willing to sell something they pull out of a mud puddle I think of his poor kids who will have to deal with all that once he's gone.

    I'm still going through my parents things and want to get it all wrapped up and thin some of my own stuff out so my kids would have to deal with it all. Been working on the shop for close to 16 years now and finally I can see the end in sight....

    #92 4 years ago

    My cousin was on a recent show where he purchased one of the items they picked. He met Mike years ago at car swap meets, and has known him for years.

    A lot of what is said here is true....Danielle does not work for them as portrayed, and for that matter, Mike and Frank aren't really in business together. The idea for the show came from Mike, and he is the one that pitched it and found someone willing to take a chance. He actually works more with his brother than anyone, and that is why you see him more and more on the show these days. Frank was an old high school buddy and Danielle was an acquaintance that he got to do the show with him.

    Now with that said, they do actually buy and sell items, but if you have ever been to their shops, you know full well they are only tourist traps and not really making any money off of the actual items they have there for sale. it's a TV show, and nothing you see is 100% real.

    Back to my cousin...he said Mike's brother contacted him to sell a certain piece, and when he balked at the sky-high price....it was explained he would be basically buying some national advertising exposure for his business and new podcast venture. The advertising has paid off a little...so he is happy he made the investment, and he and his daughter got to be on a nationally syndicated TV show. So the next time you are asking yourself how they find anyone to pay the prices that they do....you now know those folks are basically buying their time on the screen.

    #93 4 years ago

    The guys are both, greed and good/smart. If you are not doing 100-400% on items profit, you are going backwards.
    As for Ben's feelings about family burdeon. 8 AM day after hoarder dies, doors open by remaining family and sell
    it all cash as-is no offers refused. At noon sharp, doors close. Load out to large roll-aways is visible during 8-12 hours, motivates folks.
    The rest of the 'crap' goes to charity, or dump, depending on local markets and skills/merits on the stuff. Its a one day resolution fest,
    cash talks, crap walks, rest rolls, and family moves on. Its kinda a wake thing, kinda.

    #94 4 years ago

    I like these kinds of shows but cut cable almost 10 years ago. Which ones are on Netflix or Amazon Video?

    #95 4 years ago

    I heard you don't have to pay a dime for content any more. Variable Pyrite Nodes, Torrentials, and Clientele software make it possible to empower the average schlock and avoid the noid of the Big Bad Cable shilocks. I have been meaning to check it all out, but its way over my head. Looking at investing in a Boogle-O-Meter to help determine the risks involved with the Aye-Eye coming down on the individual.

    #96 4 years ago

    Similar to AP, Shark Tank really puts it to the people hosted on their show. And the use of their image and logo. More licensing headaches.

    -2
    #97 4 years ago
    Quoted from Rody:

    The bartering is real, but so is their interest in some of th

    Bartering? There is no bartering!
    Look it up.
    bar·ter
    /ˈbärdər/

    verb
    gerund or present participle: bartering
    exchange (goods or services) for other goods or services without using money.

    #98 4 years ago
    Quoted from jrpinball:

    Bartering? There is no bartering!
    Look it up.
    bar·ter
    /ˈbärdər/
    verb
    gerund or present participle: "bartering"
    exchange (goods or services) for other goods or services without using money.

    "present participle - the form of a verb, ending in -ing in English, which is used in forming continuous tenses, e.g. in I'm thinking"

    #99 4 years ago
    Quoted from jrpinball:

    Bartering? There is no bartering!

    So would you prefer negotiating or price haggling?

    #100 4 years ago
    Quoted from littlecammi:

    So would you prefer negotiating or price haggling?

    Yeah, negotiating or haggling. Bartering has a specific meaning and is often misused and confused with haggling. Downvoting ninnies should learn to speak English.

    There are 131 posts in this topic. You are on page 2 of 3.

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