There is a lot of overhead you have to remember. Vehicle costs money, insurance, gas, employee wage, health insurance. The costs go on and on. Every day an item sits on the shelf is dead cash. Sometimes they like every pawn shop have to sell the item at cost or a loss.
Did you know the food you eat at a restaurant is marked up 3xs the cost. That $9 lunch cost them $3.

Ill remember that if ya ever post a 4k pin for sale at 3500 that you paid 2500 for. I'll offer 2650.

Is what it is...... a lot of effort , time, and $$$ are put forth for an hopeful profit in the future.

It's a TV show.

It’s a staged show. Not even completely genuine. Been stated before.

Probably because fair, quick and easy negotiations make for boring TV.

^This.

What a boring show it would be if they simply walked in, asked the guy how much and paid asking price on every item.

EDIT: wayout440 got in first.

On that note, who has ever had to deal with a buyer in real life that employs the same stupid $5-$10 increments when trying to negotiate a sale on a $3000 pinball machine because they have watched it play out for a $300 item on AP?

I’m still trying to figure out the bachelor.

How can these people afford to take so many women out on dates?!?!

Something just doesn’t add up!!

They have a good business sense in realizing that driving all over the country buying junky crap from 80 year olds to sell to 50 year olds is an iffy business model so they’d need to create a TV show to create a second income stream.

Buy an oil can for $5, sell to one baby boomer in BFE Iowa for $40. Ok sure you made $10 after all the crap to get it.

Sell the fantasy of the treasure hunt, friendship, life without middle managers, “being a good horse trader”, nostalgia for a time before post-industrial America to the entire boomer demographic and the actual business is not that important.

Kinda funny too that a show about scavenging for the remnants of a “better time” from the elderly to sell to the middle aged is exactly what the History channel does culturally and historically as well (“here’s a nice safe story about WWII when we were the good guys...and your parents were heroes.”)

And how can they have so much drama if they just met?

By this logic, every business ever plain GREED.

Hahahaha, too funny. But true.

I always tell my wife every time I see her watching The Bachelor/Bachelorette I love her just a little bit less. Joking of course.

The sad part about this is that people believe it is real. And after American Pickers, they turn on Home Shopping Network to buy a "bargain" .

Nobody is going to let these guys come and shuffle through their trash if "breaking the ice" means using real prices.

Sort of like a movie that is "based on true events" and the only thing that is true is that they got the guy's name right.

The real sad part is that the politicians use the same formula to get you to vote for them.
=========================

Here is a Canadian antique dealer who is out there doing it on his own. No script writers. No TV crew. This guy is the real deal and can be interesting to watch. But if he was on TV, most people would flip to the next channel.

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.

Everything is marked up for retail sale. 100% markup is small compared to most. When I was 18 I lived above a convenience store. The landlord wrote me a note one time on the back of one of his purchase forms. EVERYTHING was at minimum 400% markup. When I saw how much the store bought and sold bacon for it blew my mind.

That was an eye opening day for a small town kid

Mmmmmm Bacon

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?

Let's say you were buying $100,000 worth of goods for $75,000 that means two men split $25,000 that's if you are able to get $600 for every $450 spent last selling all items is harder than you think NOT GREED

one thing is apparent.....One, YOU have never owned a business, to understand expenses, and each item is "One at a time" for inventory.
They cant manufacture 100 year old items by the container....Hard to do, and not Greed.

A $15 Pasta dinner, costs less than $1.00 to make. The Cup at a fast food establishment cost more than the Soda.

Greed is having Millions, and needing Billions, and perhaps lying or committing fraud along the way.

Profit margins need to cover expenses, and have an ROI.....

It's not even remotely greedy, it's their business. They do the research and know how much something is worth, among other things they also have the exposure to present the item(s) to more buyers in order to get top dollar. The owner should do research and know how much their item is worth before selling it, if they don't do that then I can't really see how it's reasonable to blame the pickers for buying things on the cheap.

It's the same reason why I don't care if I buy a $5000 game from someone and find out they only paid $1500 through some crazy circumstance, I paid the market price, why should it matter what the seller got it for?

Maybe you should take a look at his Avatar and realize "Trumpy" is vintage Triumph.

Anything can be sold on eBay these days. Some items like a $5 oil can ok not worth your time listing it. eBay charges 10% fee on the sale price. I called a local gold dealer and asked him what he paid for gold and he said spot prices minus a dollar or two and 10% less than that. I said why 10% less? He said, because it would cost you 10% to sell it on eBay. (Even though I'm not doing that here).

So moral of the story. It costs money to sell stuff, I mean just the regular folks that have the stuff, not a business like Pickers. It takes effort as well. Someone shows up and offers you cash and takes care of everything is worth something. Staged or not it's a really good show.

I stand corrected....my apologies.

Huh. I feel the opposite when I watch it. "They paid THAT much for that piece of shit!?"

The show is completely fake. This was obvious from the beginning if you just think it through for a few minutes.

Are they good businessmen? Yes. They figured out how to get paid to make a TV show.

Time is money. Back in the day I would have driven 200 miles to pick up an arcade/pin and fix/sell it. Just not worth it any more.
I offer what it is worth to ME. Sometimes I over pay, sometimes I under pay, it just depends on what its worth at the time.

This is the best laugh I have had in a .....long time

I've been doing it wrong this whole time. I buy high and sell low. Works every time.

I'm wondering WHO watches that show?

LOL
Story of my life.

And well scripted...

Holy Macaroni, you cannot be serious.

They are capitalists, they win some, they lose some.
Frank seems to have had a run of bad luck buying cars, and a train, think it made it past all that now though.

It would be interesting to see what the offers would be if there were no TV and no one watching.
Bet it would be less than half.

Agreed. I think they give too much money as-is!

Also remember they're getting paid to make a show on top of it.

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.

I've watched this show a few times and thought that they were refreshingly candid about the money situation. They have to make money for themselves and their expenses. They tell people what they will generally sell it for, and thus what they want to buy it for. Sure, lots of deals are probably cut at good prices because the cameras are running, but who cares, it's reality TV, and I don't get the sense they "seed" things like Storage Wars do. At least not beyond all the research into finding people and building that relationship in the first place. A good producer will sweet-talk and investigate things well before they arrive, I assume.

which parts are fake? The people? The deals? Are they all CGI?

Everyone is looking for a deal. Believe me I have been in the Vending business for 17 years on my own and around it for a lifetime. I get a call daily asking different questions or can I help with this or that. Being in business is hard and there is certainly more to it than most people recognize. I feel the same way with the pickers. They have contacted me many times but I don't care to be on TV. They have a lot of cost that I understand. Storage being one of the biggest. I've managed to fill more buildings than I even know of... Either way I think they are fair and their business expenses are more vast than most of us think.

show is fake as shit either way.

I wonder how many people commenting on this thread about it being fake or staged have actually met Mike and Frank or have been on the show. Not many. I had an opportunity to meet them and thought they were fair with me. I had no idea what they wanted to buy ahead of time. If it something sounded fair fine. If not I'd counter them. If we couldn't agree I just kept it.

Do people really expect them to pay retail? Maybe if it something they just want to keep for themselves if it is really unique.

The show isn't just about buying old signs and motorcycles. They do try to add some interesting history about items along the way. I enjoy watching the show and do see some interesting stuff.

Robert

Don't need to meet them to have a basic knowledge of how these shows work. There have been actual news articles written explaining it. Heavily staged is a better way of putting it. They are a sort of reenactment of how people think these things happen. When they "stumble" across something at a "pick" that they knew was there because the person talked with the producers and they spent 3 days filming and not 10 minutes. I also question the viability of their business if it weren't for reality show income. I find it hard to believe without TV income they'd have a new van, a couple stores with staff and time to drive all over the country or fly to Italy all from digging through shit at random farms. That said, I'm sure there are genuine moments mixed in. It's just kind of mindless fun and a way to show antiques...antique roadshow with driving and more dirt.

can we at least all agree that Canadian Pickers sucked?

Frank and Mike were doing this before the TV guys entered the picture.

Mike said when big-budget TV got involved they started sleeping in nice hotels instead of the back of the van or some dump of a room.

On their own, they had to cut a profit. With TV money they are on easy street.

I like watching the show to see what they dig up but the prices leave me scratching my head.

OTOH, it was not long ago that Pawn Stars had some pinball machines with crazy prices. And today, those prices are not crazy, anymore. Well, today’s prices are crazy but you know what I mean.

The two guys don’t drive across the country in the van. Think about it, what you see is a helicopter shot of the van being driven down the highway. You don’t see them in the van, except in close-ups. Do you think they are driving all around the country with a helicopter following them? Of course not. Also it is obvious when they pull into a driveway that there is a chase vehicle filming then. Would they take 2 vans, and a film crew and all of the support, and drive around the country? No. And there obviously is a film crew already on the site when they get there. Every person on any of these shows has to have a mike strapped to them, usually it’s in the backside of their pants which you can often spot if you are looking. How do you think those got on there in advance to them walking up to the door? The stars fly to where the next segment is to be filmed. They do so scenes in the van. Then the visit to the place is done, it has all been staged in advance. There is a giant film crew there with trailers, vans, makeup, etc, that you don’t see on camera.

They have already decided in advance what items will be bought and what the price will be. The “finding” of things and the negotiations are all set in advance. Sometimes things are planted in there for them to buy.

Even if they were driving around to get stuff for their store, most of the time it makes no sense. They buy three or four things and shove them in the van, worth maybe a few thousand with a few hundred dollars profit. And they are in some state 1000 miles away from Iowa. The gas money and mileage would eat it all up. It makes no sense.

If they were really into filling their store and selling antiques, then when they make those visits to people who have inherited a picker’s massive stash and they want to sell it all off, why do they buy 2 things? Why wouldn’t you assess the whole thing, offer them $100,000, or $500,000, or whatever, then send in a semi and take it all away and sell for profit?

Danielle does not “work in the office”, and she does not sit there all day calling around to set up their picks. The show has “people” to do this. Danielle is a friend of Mike’s that he asked to come do the show for fun. Her real life gig is as a burlesque dancer. If you watch the way the show is cut and the way the scenes flow when they are talking on the phone, you can see how fake it is.

I could go on, but this stuff is all out there on the intertubes.

The one thing that is real at least are the people with the stuff (mostly). That’s what keeps it interesting. But the ones they had early on were the best, like mole man.