Yuuup!

They also don’t seem to find as much interesting stuff in the Texas edition. In SoCal, there are lockers will all kinds of eclectic stuff. Finding the original pair of Olive Oil boots from Popeye? Buying Sug Night’s coat? Finding $50k worth of lighting equipment? All just amazing stuff.

In Texas they sometimes find expensive items (the Zeplin gravy goat), but it just doesn’t seem their finds are as “cool”. With the notable exception of finding $20k worth of Star Wars figures still in the boxes.

Yeah, but they should have just stopped the show there, because they aren’t going to get anything better than that locker.

My favorite Barry moments were when he tried to fly a drone into a locker for a better look (that only got him disqualified from the bidding), and when he got Police drummer Stewart Copeland to autograph an otherwise-worthless set.

That was a fair trade though, because Copeland totally stole one of the cymbals first (ok, he paid $20 or something for it).

All I could think of is how sad his career must be that he’s doing this.

Oh, I’m sure he’s not all that worried about it. The 2007-2008 Police Reunion tour grossed something like $350 million. The dude’s nearly 60, and I suspect he spends his time doing whatever the hell strikes his fancy, up to and including having oddball storage locker dudes come over to his house to show him old drum kits they found. Forty bucks for the cymbal does seem a little on the low side, but I’m guessing he knew a request for a favor was waiting in the wings…

Taking the episode at face value, what I want to know is how the hell a retired produce company owner turned collector of random objects turns out to be old pals with Stewart Copeland. Maybe Barry is one of those guys who ends up knowing everyone and his brother by virtue of sheer force of personality and a lifetime of pursuing varied interests.

It’s a guilty pleasure for sure, but it still drives me nuts that they calculate the dollar values on the lockers based on what they say, rather than what they sell (or don’t sell) for.

That Duck Hunt common NES cartridge, that’s a thirty dollar bill right there.

Yeah. That bugs me too. The crazy thing is that some of the stuff that are collectibles aren’t the sort of thing that they could easily sell in a thrift store. Do they manage to e-bay or craigslist it? Otherwise, that rare collectible would end up being sold to a dealer of such items and would end up at a discount from the valuation.

Every now and then, thought it is rare, the guy giving them the value of something actually buys it after putting a price on it. But then why wouldn’t you go get a second opinion.

Lots of questions.

One of the lead characters mentioned on a show that they did sell certain items on e-bay.

Yeah, although it has other problems, Pawn Stars tends to be more honest about that particular thing. They’ll often explicitly talk about how hard an item will be to find a buyer, and will give a low-ball offer if they know it’ll just sit in inventory for a long time. You also see what kind of margins they need to keep them in business when they get an official appraisal vs. their offer.

Well, I generally assume the entire pricing meet-ups are theater anyways, they have a pretty good idea what it’s worth, or they wouldn’t drag the camera crew with them to check out that item.

Except sometimes they turn out to be real duds.

You’d be surprised how connected seemingly innocuous people could be…particularly in California. Years ago I worked for a guy who claimed to be (and it turned out was) Buddy Rich’s former manager. Years before that I worked in a telemarketing office selling office supplies for a company owned by Freddie Sessler. If only I had believed his stories…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ8lcFpjJhI

I went to a concert at a club here, a few years back, and wound up chatting with the guy sitting next to me between sets. As he told it, he had recently moved to the area from somewhere in the Carolinas (Hilton Head, I believe) where he had been the bug exterminator to the stars.

He claimed to have provided regular extermination services for such public figures as Pat Conroy, John Mellencamp, and Mark Messier. Of those, he says Messier was the nicest, but Mellencamp was the most regular-guyish.

I never pay attention to the supposed “value” of the items in any of these shows. Pawn Stars is probably closest to the truth, and they at least constantly reiterate that the items are only worth what someone else will pay for them (minus the store’s profit margin). American Pickers is the most subjective of the lot, totally pulling numbers out of their ass. “I bought this rusty piece of shit sign for $40 and think I can totally get $80 for it”. Honestly with as little as they seem to make per pick I wonder how they feed themselves. Auction Hunters is complete BS, using the ridiculous theatrical staged deals to add drama filler to the show. With Storage Wars you only see the occasional item being appriased or sold, and often it ends up not being worth what was expected. While it’s still likely staged, at least that part has some grounding in reality, unlike the Darrel, Dave and Jared bullshit numbers they rattle off while digging through crap. “Oh, that old Atari 2600 is totally worth $200!” “Someone will pay $800 for this used faux-leather sofa!” “That dirty old used briefcase full of porn is a $50 bill all day long.”

Now and Then Thrift Store (Brandy and Jared) used to have an Ebay presence. Not sure if it still does, as when the show got popular about a couple dozen variations on “Now_&_Then” cropped up on Ebay as usernames. Knowing Jared they probably changed the name to “Outlaw Thrift” or something. Reviews on the internet of the store in Orange County say it’s a lot of way overpriced junk for a Thrift Store, so apparently the crazy prices they rattle off on the show actually do make it to the store floor.

I think the American Pickers people often sell to interior decorators and set designers and stuff, so I think they might be able to get somewhat inflated prices in that market. As you say, no idea what their overall business model is though.

Also, if anybody is interested in what happens to the old crummy crap that they need to “do a little work on” before they can sell it, History Channel has American Restoration, which is pretty neat, and they get into exact numbers for what it costs them to restore stuff (since they actually do the work).

“That dirty old used briefcase full of porn is a $50 bill all day long.”

Hehe.

American Restoration is awesome. I think that might be my dream job.

American Restoration is another example of what could be a genuinely great show hampered by idiotic reality-tv cliches and nonsense. The core of that show is rock-solid, because those guys do some clearly amazing work, and the things they restore are totally wicked. That’s what I’m tuning into the show for.

But instead, the producers seem to think I give a shit about Mr. Restoration’s* kid or wife, or the fake-tension of revealing the final product to customers, or any of that nonsense. Nobody cares. Just show me that cool 1940s milk dispenser or that old cigarette machine.

  • Who looks like he was the bass player in D.O.A. in like 1982.

That’s how a lot of TV is these days. The American version of Kitchen Nightmares seems to think I give a fuck about Gorden Ramsay fixing relationships - I don’t.