I believe most of the sellers on the show asked for them to come by and visit. Many of them think they want to sell but when asked just can’t. Now a good picker spends a lot of time with the seller. You can tell when the seller finally starts to think about letting some items go.

For those that think they would like to be a picker you will need to spend years leaning. Going to auctions meeting dealers, and meeting more dealers and more dealers… Don’t plan on making much money picking at first and be realy to make misstakes. The kind of mistakes that cost you money. If you notice on the show they give the cost, the value and sometimes what they sold the item for. Remember the $5,500.00 mistake Frank made on the car!!!! Watch the show closely and you will see; they paid $100.00 value $300.00 sold for $150.00. Pickers buy mostly for dealers that have to make the better money becuase they have to hold the item untill a retail customer comes along. Most of the time the margin is 20 – 50% of the cost. The dealer calls and asks if I am going to the auction, and if I am, we work out a deal. This is a great way for the dealer to buy an item without letting other dealers know he or she is the buyer. I also do this for some collectors.

If I am working for a dealer at an auction I get a % of the purchase price or the difference between the high bit the dealer sets and the lower price it goes for, whitch ever is greater. I also only do this if there are items I want at the auction.

I feel the show is an honest look at what a picker does. We take chances most of the time when buying rough items. The margins are not what you might think but the hunt is great!! The people are great and for me that is what it is all about… the people!!

The guys talk about the joy of the find, and yes you can see it in their eyes, but it seems to me the joy looks a lot like $$$.

Not that there is anything wrong with that – this is their business after all. I just just hoping for another direction.

I agree that the people on film have to know what they are getting into. As spontaneous as it looks, I’m sure there is a guy with a clipboard and a legal agreement that is gone over and signed before the filming begins.

I laughed when you talked about going up to strangers doors and asking them if they had anything for sale. My husband is really good at this. We have a 60 foot windmill we are going to put on our property that he had been looking at for years when driving past a rural farm house. The windmill was bent over near the top and obviously needed a lot of work. My husband went to this farmhouse about a dozen times before he found someone home. He asked the owner if he wanted to sell the windmill and was told a lot of people stop and ask about it but no one ever returns to remove it. My husband tried to pay him $500 for the windmill on the spot but the man said no. Then the man said if you come back on the weekend and take it down I’ll sell it to you. So, Thanksgiving weekend, in 40 degree weather my husband climbed the windmill tower and one by one lowered each piece down to me using a pulley. It took us two days but now we have a windmill we plan on putting up on our property.

It’s amazing what you can buy if you just ask.

Kelley