Being the American Picker isn't the only thing Mike Wolfe has a knack for.
Did you know he's obsessed with bikes? Took a stab at acting?
And what actually made him start his picking business? Stay tuned to find out!
Growing up as a poor kid in Bettendorf, Iowa and later LeClaire, Wolfe had his share of
bullies. To avoid them on the way to and from school, he got into the habit of cutting through
backyards and back alleys, where the only unpleasantness that awaited him was trash.
After a while, the youngster started to find that some of this trash wasn't so unpleasant — in fact,
it could be downright intriguing. He told the Des Moines Register:
"The alleys were safe places for me, and that's where the garbage was, too. And so
the garbage became my toys and they became part of my imagination and they became part of who I was."
According to Wolfe, his first major "pick" was a discarded bike that he
found in a trash heap when he was six. He told CBS:
"I thought to myself, if someone would throw out a bike, what else would they throw out?"
Even as a kid, Wolfe felt the need for speed. In 2011, he told told Bicycling magazine:
"Those big, fat kids who were six years older than
me — I smoked those guys on a bike. No one could touch me."
As a young man, he parlayed that particular quality into a job as
a bicycle messenger in Chicago for a short time. But his home state,
not to mention his girlfriend at the time, called him home. He added:
"I interviewed with Bike 'n Hike in Davenport. I just told the owner that I loved bicycles — that
they're my whole life — and he gave me a job building bicycles in his warehouse."
Wolfe admits that paying the bills was still a bit rough at this point, due to the fact that he
couldn't stop blowing his paychecks on more bikes. This, however, ended up being a deceptively-wise
strategy when a local shop came up for sale. Wolfe reminisced to Bicycling magazine:
"I traded my old bicycles and everything I had — everything — to get it. I did $150 the
first day and took the store from 75 bikes a year to 500 bikes a year the first year.
That's when mountain bikes were taking off. I was the largest Manitou dealer in the country.
It was nuts. We were rocking it so hard we opened another store in East Davenport."
Of course, Wolfe wasn't just selling bikes during this time, he was also riding them. During the
late '80s and into the '90s, he was a five-time competitor in Register's Annual Great Bicycle
Ride Across Iowa, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a grueling, six-day ride across the
entire state in which participants must complete a jaw-dropping 67 miles per day, 468 miles in total.
"I was riding around on European racing bikes, and not a lot of people understood that."
Such was his prowess as a cyclist that he was able to bring home a trophy or two, finishing first in
the Iowa State Time Trial Championships in 1998. While he still harbored a love for picking,
he was at this point living his dream. Wolfe was eating, breathing, and sleeping bicycles, while
having a great deal of personal and professional success in the process. But then fate intervened.
Wolfe's life changed suddenly when a devastating fire destroyed one of his bike stores. Even worse,
his insurance turned out to be more of a liability than a help. He told Bicycling,
"My shop in Eldridge burned down. There was a fire in the apartment above me, and it all collapsed
down into my store. The dipsh— I bought the shop from had gone on to sell insurance and
sold me some crappy commercial policy [...] It took me three years to get any money."
He said that even though his bikes were still selling, it wasn't enough, adding:
"I could never recover financially. Even though the second shop was doing well,
I could never get back what I lost. I was always behind. Then cha-ching,
eBay came along and that changed my life forever."
The rise of ebay meant that Wolfe suddenly had a way to make money
off of his other lifelong love: picking. He ultimately closed his stores, bought a van,
and in 2000, hit the road for the life of a picker. He confessed to Bicycling:
"If you would have told me that I would close my shop back when I was selling 400 bikes a year,
I would have said, 'No way, I'll be doing this forever.' It was my lifelong dream [...] But
it didn't make sense anymore, so I had a going-out of-business sale, got a cargo van,
a cell phone and a website and started Antique Archaeology."
For about five years, Wolfe slowly built a living doing essentially the same thing he does
now on "American Pickers": Driving all over the place, knocking on doors, talking to collectors,
scouring their collections for anything that he might find interesting. During this time,
he would often shoot selfie videos chronicling his time on the road. He added that his friends and
acquaintances would commonly mention that his life was so unusual it would make for a good TV show.
So, the idea for "American Pickers'' was born, with an unexpected inspiration:
Anthony Bourdain. Wolfe said he envisioned "American Pickers" as being similar to
Bourdain's travelogue-style culinary shows, but focused on collectibles instead of food.
While Bourdain's shows served as a vehicle to shine light on different regions and cultures
through the lens of food, Wolfe similarly hoped to explore Americana through the lens of junk.
After five years of pitching this idea to any network that would listen,
Wolfe finally found a receptive pair of ears in History Channel executive Mary Donohue.
Donohue told the Des Moines Register,
"History Channel has never been just about the past.
It's also about the present and, more importantly, the living, breathing,
exciting reminders of our past in our present day [..]. What we really enjoyed
[about the "American Pickers" pitch] was that it was outside of the shop,
and that Mike and Frank were traveling through parts of America that felt really fresh to us."
The original Antique Archaeology store is located in Le Claire,
and the Nashville location opened soon after "American Pickers" debuted, finding swift success.
Wolfe also owns a home in the Nashville area, and as one might imagine, he's a fan of country
music. His fan of country jams has led to a rather unexpected second career in writing country music.
In 2011, Wolfe was introduced to country music producer Brian Ahern,
whose career stretches all the way back to the early sixties.
Ahern's worked with the likes of Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell, among others. Ahern, it turned out,
was also a fan of "American Pickers," and pitched a compilation project called "Music to Pick By."
Of course, Wolfe was into it, and when he suggested a few choice cuts by country legend
Dale Watson for inclusion, Ahern just went ahead and got Watson on the horn,
and then into his studio. One marathon songwriting session later,
Watson and Wolfe had penned three new songs for the compilation. Soon thereafter,
Wolfe became a newly-minted member of the songwriters' organization BMI.
Once "American Pickers" and the rest of his endeavors were gaining steady momentum,
Wolfe and his then-wife Jodi Faeth decided that the time was right to become parents.
So, in 2012, they welcomed their daughter Charlie.
Unfortunately, the occasion was cause for apprehension as well as joy: Charlie was born with
a cleft lip and palate, conditions which afflict millions of children worldwide. The condition can
lead to lifelong speech, eating, and psychological problems if not treated early in life.
Fortunately, Charlie received corrective surgery, which was performed promptly and successfully.
Wolfe realized though that not all parents are fortunate enough to pay for an operation like
that, which is why he sought out Operation Smile. Operation Smile is a global outreach organization
with the goal of providing cleft lip and palate treatment for those unable to afford or access it.
Thanks to Wolfe's sponsorship, the organization's profile has since grown significantly. Wolfe has
even worked to draw others into Operation Smile's orbit. In 2015, he collaborated with artist Isabel
Bloom to create a series of sculptures, entitled "Charlie's Smile," to benefit the organization.
Wolfe's passion for restoring lost treasures isn't just limited to motorcycles and knick-knacks.
He also has a soft spot in his heart for old buildings. Speaking
to CBS Sunday Morning in 2020, he shared that he has spent millions
buying and restoring derelict buildings both in Le Claire and Columbia, Tennessee.
As it turns out, his passion to save such pieces of history didn't simply sprout up
once he had the means to actually fund restoration efforts. Way back in 2003,
before "American Pickers" was even a gleam in his eye, he ran for a City Council seat in LeClaire
for the sole purpose of leading a revitalization effort in the small town. He later added:
"I ran for City Council because I used to walk down these streets
at night with my dog, and think about what this place could be."
"I tell people all the time, If you want to see small town America,
if you want to see Main Street,
get in your car and drive, and go take a trip with your family. Because it is disappearing."
Wolfe and his partners do pretty well for themselves with "American Pickers". However,
the show and his retail locations are far from his only source of income, and it's not just
all of those savvy real estate investments and restorations that have yielded returns either.
In a 2015 conversation with Fast Company, Wolfe related
a conversation with History Channel executives that was quite the eye-opener. He shared:
"History [Channel] said something to me about four years ago, and I'll never forget it:
'We're not in the Mike Wolfe business, we're in the 'American Pickers' business.'
That woke me up. I said to myself, 'You know, that's right, you are in
the 'American Pickers' business, and I better get in the Mike Wolfe business real fast.'"
It's safe to say that he's had some success at that. He began with an understanding that
it was the show that was feeding his business — not the other way around.
"We're on television now 20 hours a week. Imagine trying to buy 20 hours a week of television,
what that would cost you. You couldn't do it [...] So for us,
being a small business and having that type of exposure is crazy."
It turned out that it wasn't just the lovingly-restored antiques that
customers were buying. They also love merch. Wolfe added:
"Ninety percent of our sales are clothing, so all of a sudden I'm in the clothing business.
I'm looking at what we're making for spring. I'm looking at hard goods,
soft goods, how those goods are presented in my store; the function, the flow,
the lighting, how it's focused, where it's at, how close is it to the cash register.
I'm constantly having meetings with my team to know what's selling and what's not."
Clothing sales have been so successful that Wolfe has branched out with a new clothing line called,
Two Lanes, which offers a variety of gear, both in-store and online.
Wolfe may have a lot on his plate, but if he has his way, it won't be long before you're
seeing him on your TV screen doing something other than picking through piles of junk.
For the last decade or so, he's been flirting with breaking into scripted programming.
This new dive started with a 2012 pitch for a workplace comedy based on his experiences and
the day-to-day routine at Antique Archaeology. For a bit of time, it was in development as CBS.
While that project might have fallen through, Wolfe's acting bug remained.
In 2018, Wolfe appeared as himself in an episode of the long-running procedural "NCIS".
Its plot involved the gang and NCIS recognizing a piece featured on
"American Pickers" as a potential clue in a cold case murder investigation.
"Since I've had this, Frank and I have had some incredible luck finding things,
and I'm just not willing to break up with that mojo yet."
Wolfe hasn't popped up in any films or TV series since, but that doesn't mean he won't.
As he explained to Fast Company back in 2015:
"Do I know how to pitch a movie? No, I don't. I have an idea,
but I surround myself with people that know how to do it. Do I know how to
make a house-flipping show? Not really, but I surround myself with people that want to do it.
All my ideas are organic, but they come from the same places that my passions are, and I'm
smart enough to surround myself with people that understand how those processes need to work."
We wouldn't bet against him. Wolfe is nothing if not diligent — and as we've seen for many
years now, he has a way of scrubbing the rust from that "old gold" in grand fashion!
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