Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz struck gold with their hit History Channel series American
Pickers, which follows the besties around the country as they search for treasure in
America's garages, basements, and outbuildings.
Not every trip is a major payday, but sometimes the boys get lucky.
Here are some of the most expensive items ever discovered on American Pickers.
Fritz and Wolfe have a special affinity for rare cars manufactured by companies no longer
in business.
In this season 12 episode, they stumbled on an exceptionally scarce Auburn Phaeton 653
from 1935, the last year of production on that particular automobile.
They paid its owner $26,500 for the car, although it cost them another $1,000 to ship it back
to American Pickers HQ, where they spent around $10,000 to make it look and run as good as
new.
It wound up with a value of $45,000, and after subtracting the $37,500 investment, that makes
for a tidy profit of $7,500.
License plates today are made of metal, and issued by state motor vehicle departments
as a way to uniquely identify each vehicle.
But when cars became commonplace more than 100 years ago, the government issued license
numbers, but not plates, meaning drivers or car companies had make their own, and they
sometimes used unusual materials to do so, such as embossed leather.
Wolfe thought this leather beauty was pretty peculiar, and paid a whopping $1,000 for the
privilege of ownership.
He later sold it, and made a nice $200 on the flip.
American Pickers season three began with the duo hitting the road for Bushkill Park, an
amusement park in Easton, Pennsylvania.
One of the oldest continuously operating amusement parks in the country, it opened in 1902 but
mostly closed down in the 2000s.
On a guided tour of the property they found some whimsical and enticing sideshow banners
used to promote the park's circus events long, long ago.
Knowing they were worth something, the Pickers walked away with a few for $700, but were
delighted when they later sold for $10,000.
Royal Pioneer specialized in luxury motorbikes until a factory fire limited the company's
lifetime production at around 500 and destroyed the entire operation.
That makes a Royal Pioneer motorcycle in any condition rare — in fact, only four are
known to exist.
That's why Wolfe forked over $55,000 for the skeleton of a 1910 specimen.
Sure, it didn't look like much, but a little elbow grease and he'd be sure to make a tidy
profit.
After all, another restored Royal Pioneer motorcycle had previously sold for nearly
$100,000.
While swinging through New England in late 2013, the Pickers visited Holyoke, Massachusetts,
home of Paper City Brewery.
Co-owners and brothers Jay and Jon Hebert keep a nice collection of classic motorcycles
in the company's mill building, so Wolfe and Fritz soon found themselves in motorcycle
heaven.
Of the more than a dozen bikes on display, the duo bought five altogether, including
a 1932 Harley-Davidson.
Total offering price of that loud and powerful haul: $62,000.
The guys didn't exactly know what to expect in season 16 when they were approached by
a woman who promised that she had an interesting and extensive collection of movie memorabilia.
But they were blown away by what they saw.
The collector was in possession of several awesome pieces, including a prototype of an
officially licensed Yoda statue created in the mid-'90s.
Even a non-collector knows that a one-of-a-kind Star Wars piece like this is going to be valuable,
especially considering it's different than the manufactured statue.
Take home a Yoda the Pickers did, for the relatively low price of $6,250.
In the season seven premiere, the team spotted what seemed at first glance to be an original
Lionel model train set, and one in mint condition.
They agreed to pay $8,000 for the whole shebang and couldn't believe now lucky they were.
That would turn out, unfortunately, to be one of the most disappointing acquisitions
in American Pickers history.
When they asked an auctioneer for an appraisal, they learned the toy wasn't quite what they'd
thought.
The train was not 100 percent original parts — many had been replaced, significantly
reducing its overall value.
Ultimately, the Pickers unloaded the train set for $3,400, less than half of what they'd
paid for it.
"I kind of want to throw up."
Sometimes Lady Luck is with Mike and Frank during the filming of American Pickers, like
the time in season five when they found an actual dinosaur bone.
The guys also found fortune eleven seasons later with something decidedly less prehistoric:
an Eisenhower-era motorcycle with an attached sidecar.
The guys managed to find a rare Zundapp RS 750, and paid out a not-insubstantial sum
of $10,000 to own it, plus $1,000 in shipping.
After spending some more cash to restore it, a Georgia vintage motorcycle shop took it
off their hands for $18,000.
In the middle of season 13 of American Pickers, somehow, someway, the team discovered two
Nash-Healeys at an old AMC dealership.
Nash Motors only produced cars from 1951 to 1954, and high-end and classic car collectors
love them, so to find two of these sleek and wonderful sports cars just hanging out and
gathering dust is kind of unreal, so the guys just had to make an offer.
$46,000 is a lot of money to spend on anything, let alone two cars that hadn't hit the road
in decades.
Yet in the end, as they often do, the Pickers came out on top.
According to the Hagerty Price Guide, each car is worth around $37,000, which means Mike
and Fritz basically got two Nash-Healeys for the price of one.
This episode from the show's seventeenth season bore the cryptic title "The $90,000 Question,"
because that's roughly the amount the guys consider spending on an unbelievable lot of
old motorcycles in various states of disrepair on a property in Oregon.
There among the slowly rotting hunks of once-grand metal sat a few choice picks, including a
decades-old Ace four-cylinder number, one of the rarest motorcycles in the world.
It's not going to be cheap for Mike and Frank to get it into roadworthy shape, but it was
just too good to pass up.
Altogether, the guys pull the trigger and actually hand over about $90,000 on the bikes
— a Pickers record.
"If they want to come out and buy more stuff?
Absolutely."
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