Say It Ain't So Joe! Storage Wars Fixed?!

[Critterhunter]

Looks like David Hester has quit the show and is suing for millions. He claims he complained that the producers were stuffing lockers with items to help other members on the show (and him as well) and made other huge claims about how they rig the bidding and such. He says when he complained to them about them salting lockers they breached his contract and canned him from the show. If that is true them I have to wonder what these idiot producers were thinking. Obviously great items worth a bunch of money ARE found in lockers, otherwise how would many of these people have made great livings for 20+ years? My point is why get greedy and start spiking the lockers? Now you've just ruined the reputation of a great show. I honestly believed that show was real, while I knew that other storage show on another channel was fake due to the outrageous things and people they'd find in lockers and such (and even booby traps....come on!). If storage wars is indeed rigged then looks like I'm down to Pawn Stars and American Pickers as my two favorite shows now. Man, if I find out those are faked too then my reality TV show days are just about over.

 

[Larry (IL)]

I hate to burst your bubble, but ALL of the reality shows are fixed to make them exciting and watchable. Watch pickers really pick would be quite boring and if you want to see how boring a pawn shop really is, just stop in one and spend an hour........ that is REAL reality. Remember how exciting metal detecting appeared on TV? The next thing you are going to tell us is there really is no Santa...........

 

[Elton]

LOL............. Critter do you really think those $20,000.00 dollar relics are brought to a pawn shop and sold ?? All show my friend...
and then there is the instant access to "Authorities" on all things Hahahahaahahah..... ................

I'm just messing with you Critter.................. but it's just a scripted show with players............ There may be a real pawn shop...we just never see the real transactions.......



Updat from AOL publication......................

UPDATE: Radar Online reports that there are a series of emails and receipts that can help prove Hester's claims, which were true especially during the first season of "Storage Wars," a source claims.

 

[GeorgeinSC]

I have suspected all along that the show was too good to be true. I have seen too many "Reality TV" shows to think that they can be 100% true and accurate. Too many items quoted above suggested price retail for new and the items they "find" are usually used and worth considerable less than new. I suspect that all of the "Reality TV" shows are faked to some extent. Maybe I am too pessimistic but that comes from being an Old Phart with a whole bunch of experience.

 

[mudpuppy]

You could tell Hester was going to be a pantload from jump...and now he is! Theres a few reality shows that are not QUITE fixed, like the guys who catch alligators or the Crabbers, and even the guys on Wicked Tuna, but still, after the first season of semi truthful air, if the "lightening in a bottle" element is there, the producers try to add additional excitement and drama to the format...which, sadly is obvious, and detracts from the interesting "reality" we are looking for. Those producers are really something...they sit around and dream up this stuff, how to make "reality" what they consider more dramatic, by adding bleeps and fights and all...heaven help any of us that fall into their hands! My work has taken me into many of these sets, from OCC to Monster Garage . I can say, Chip Foose and Jessie Combs on Overhaulin' are the real deal...and the producer is a great guy as well, they go to great lengths to make sure the build is for the right person.
Mud

 

[Critterhunter]

I hate to burst your bubble, but ALL of the reality shows are fixed to make them exciting and watchable. Watch pickers really pick would be quite boring and if you want to see how boring a pawn shop really is, just stop in one and spend an hour........ that is REAL reality. Remember how exciting metal detecting appeared on TV? The next thing you are going to tell us is there really is no Santa...........

Larry, Pickers or Pawn Stores ain't showing hours of dull footage that they filmed to get the gems. That is what editing is for. You go to a dud barn and you just edit that out. Just because 95% of the job is boring don't necessarily mean 5% they show ain't the real deal.

So in other words, you're telling me that somehow Pawn Stars opened a store 20 some years ago and didn't make any money on anything good, just waiting for the day a TV producer would come along and give them a TV contract? Come on now, you ever been to Vegas? There is a good reason why that store is open 24 hours a day. And the kind of knowledge that guy and the old man (not the son of the son, I don't think he knows much) have on that show don't come scripted. He's been well known for years as knowing his stuff when it comes to art, history, and other such things. That's the very reason why they got noticed and got a show. That store already had a reputation before a TV show came along.

Same deal with American Pickers. Your really think those two guys started a business years ago and faked everything just so they could one day get a TV contract? Again, both of them know their stuff and their very business is antiques, so one would think then that of course they do indeed find antiques, buy them, and re-sell them. Makes perfect sense to me. I know a guy who does that in fact to some extent. Only he hits garage sales and such, yet even he has his stories of great finds. Amazes me.

My point is that it's already obvious that you can make a living doing those things or buying storage lockers, so why the need to spike lockers? Those producers got greedy, that's why, and probably have now ended up killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The only way I see that show surviving now is if they put a disclaimer at the beginning saying they admit they (the show producers) salted lockers and apologize for doing something so unnecessary, and that they now pay independent security to insure no such things will ever happen again. I doubt they'll do that, and for that reason I doubt that show will be on much longer.

And, sure, in broad terms I have no doubt most reality shows are faked. But let's not forget cops, the first 48 (great show), Alaskan Troopers, and a few others of that type. You telling me those shows are rigged too? That I ain't buying, even if I do think shows like Lizard Lick Towing and many others are total bunk. Or what about Parking Wars? Again, I doubt that's faked. Yet, I'm sure much of the footage ends up on the cutting room floor because it's as boring as watching paint dry.

Think of it this way...On these forums you see some great finds posted, don't you? Sure, but we all know that a lot of times we go out and don't find anything good. In other words, all that jazz ends up on the cutting room floor.

On the other hand, one of my neighbors recently bought a storage locker. I dropped by while he was unloading his pickup truck. Guess what was sitting in the middle of the garage? Yep, you guessed it...An black antique safe that he was trying to figure out if he should destroy or have opened professionally so he could re-sell it. He later had the safe opened by a pro and it did have a few old guns in it but they weren't worth much. Point being there is reality to buying storage lockers and legit people making money at it...

 

[Larry (IL)]

Don't get me wrong, I watch them too, I just don't believe everything I see.

 

[yowow#1]

All reality shows are fake (scripted). The one thing that befuddled me about storage wars from the first episode was "if you had a (valuable item) in a storage locker and you knew you were not going to be able to pay the rent on the locker, then why wouldn't you go get your valuable item out of the locker before you forfeited the locker? YOU WOULD! That is why i say there is nothing valuable ever (or very very rare) found in an abandoned storage locker. The only time you would find something of value in an abandoned storage locker would because the owner of the locker is deceased or incarcerated or for some reason can't get to their valuable item. happy detecting and God Bless.

 

[Sven]

Been to Storage Locker auctions years before the show even began. Occasionally you'll find something good.
Most of the time it's junk folks didn't have a garage or basement to store it in. Like stuff they couldn't sell at this years garage sale
that should have been donated to the thrift store. Lockers sold on the average $25 for the small closet type to $250 for the larger ones.
Things have changed with the Storage War shows brought out a new group of wannabees, and the storage unit companies are advertising-hyping up
the auction as storage wars. So units are going higher than norm with a lot of disappointed buyers now have to pay the dump to dispose of the items.
I know a few guys here that will take newbies to the cleaners so they never come back to another auction.
I see the stuff they buy, now they pay $2000 a month to rent a warehouse to store it in. He sure has to sell a lot to make rent every month, so he opened the warehouse up
and set it up like a Fleamarket co-op. Plus he had to hire some inside help. By the way the warehouse is not heated, cost way too much.
From what I see he is making money, not much profit in the end but enough to buy some more lockers. He's like a treasure hunter in a way, thats what keeps him
buying. He has a contracting job as well to keep his family and house alive. In the end it's still work to find the good stuff every now and then.

I found during before the TV shows Antiques Roadshow, etc. I could make a decent living during 2000-2008 buying and selling items bought at garage sales, estate sales,
and flea markets. Cherry picking only the good stuff. It was still work 40-60 hours a week, profits were huge. Had no reason to work for anyone. The shows changed all that.
Now I have to work for someone again. Occasionally find some thing good to resell. Many of my competition had to work for someone again as well.

I always thought most of the show(s) were scams.
But, I can tell you some really good stories of the buys myself or others have made over the years that would salivate your glands
To be successful you need to have plenty of knowledge on products, brand names, current selling prices, what's selling and what's not, how much to pay to make it worthwhile to resell for profit.
You want stuff that's going to move and not sit around. During the good years 95% of the items I purchased on the weekend sold by the end of the following 2 week. Turnover was high, not now a days.

If you thought reality shows are reality, then your life is pretty dull. Too bad too many people think the shows are real.
Amazing when people take their valuables to the pawn shops and find out, they don't want it or pay a fraction of what they perceived they would get by watching the shows.
I have spotted the hype on the shows where they mention such item is worth $1000 (in TV land) you'd be lucky to sell that item if you found a buyer for $100.

Sorry for rambling on but, those shows p*** me off. I don't watch them, my wife did for the longest times for laughs.
So of course would stop to watch and listen for a minute or two, three, when she was watching ...LOL

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's the way I see it- Yes, many reality shows are obvious fakes. But, on the other hand, that doesn't mean all are. They probably film tons of footage just to widdle it down to the few gems on shows like American Pickers or Pawn Stars. Like I said, if we filmed all out detecting outings there wouldn't be much excitement at all to watch. We all know most of us only post threads about the keepers we do find, or videos where we unearth a nice old coin. Does that mean we are faking it? No, of course not. Just means we are widdeling it down to the gems.

I'll give you an example of what p**ses me off. I'm a hunter and I dislike most hunting shows on TV. Usually they are buck crazy and only after some huge rack to hang on their wall. Truth is most hunters I know are pure meat hunters and will gladly take a plump doe or a buck with a small rack. As the old saying goes, you can't eat the antlers. These shows give the non-hunter public the idea that we are all just a bunch of trophy hunters. And, often they do their filming/hunting on pay-per-hunt private ranches, where it's a lot easier to wait for a big buck to walk by. Truth is I'd much rather watch a hunting show where the guy is on public land and has to work hard for his deer. I would get much more satisfaction seeing a doe took in these places than some wall hanger harvested on some expensive private hunting ranch.

Same deal with us detecting. We all know old coins and silver in particular are fairly hard to come by on most public land these days. We know they are still there, but to find them takes skill and the willingness to dig iffy coin hits that most others pass on as "junk". But that's the challenge in our hobby. If it was easy to stroll into a public park and walk out with a bucket of silver coins then the challenge would be gone. Just like fishing. I've fished stocked tiny ponds and the thrill just isn't there when they jump on your hook like mad.

That's why I hope there is never a detector invented that will suck out all the coins left with ease, or be able to tell you the difference between a gold ring and trash. God forbid that ever happens, because then the challenge will be gone and the public sites will be trully "dead" this time around. VLF technology is pretty much limited by the laws of physics that govern detection fields. You can't make it go around corners and see a coin being masked by trash. First/shallowest metal object in the field and it's game over. I don't see that changing as you just can't control the laws that govern how magnetic detection fields work. It's like blowing a soap bubble out of a machine. Regardless of how much electronics you cram into the control box it won't change what the soap bubble (or detection field) does once it's "blown up" and floating out there.

Same deal with what the field can tell you. Far as I've read it's impossible for the field to see two targets in the field (same depth and close together for that to happen) and know it's got two targets there. Only exception being that detection fields can tell you the ferrous/non-ferrous aspects of the mixed "as one" signal when say a coin and nail are both being washed in the field at once due to them being the same depth and right up against each other. The field just can't tell you much other than the ferrous and non-ferrous conductive properties of the target. That's why I don't see a VLF machine ever coming along that can say ID gold versus a pull tab.

The only thing that gives me nightmares is some new form of detection technology that is different than VLF. Perhaps ground penetrating radar that will display a target's picture on the screen. If that happens and is detailed enough to say show the difference between a round tab and a ring then the game is over and it's private property hunting as public land will be pointless. But, even if the machine can show you that a target is round, can it show the hole in the middle? Can it give you enough detail to know it's a coin or ring and not a round tab or bottle cap? Can it tell you what kind of coin it is? If it can't, then in some respects VLF still wins. The conductive properties of say zinc pennies versus a copper penny, or say the bad traits of a bottle cap versus a coin, will still give VLF the edge in my opinion. And, will the imaging of a non-VLF unit be able to see under shallower trash? If not then same deal. Not really a step forward in finding the good stuff but rather a wash in end results between that and good old VLF.

 

[Larry (IL)]

They are like finding a carnival token.......... No cash value......for amusement only.

 

[GeorgeinSC]

The question I have always had about the Pawn Store and Storage locker shows is who in their right mind takes an item that they believe is worth thousands of dollars to a Pawn Shop to try to sell it without having the item professionally appraised?? Also why would one go to a pawn shop with that same Item knowing that they are going to get less than half of the real value of the item?? Who leaves items worth thousands of dollars in a storage locker and doesn't keep the rent paid?? Would they not take that valuable item out of the locker before they quit paying to store their junk?? Just my two zinc's Worth.

 

[Sven]

Hey Critter, used to work in a gun hunting fishing shop. I agree with you most hunter as well as fishermen were meat eaters first.
I have nothing against hunting just don't find baiting a spot, sitting in a tree or blind waiting for the target to walk by, then aim and shoot.
Real hunting is going out, tracking, staking and outwitting a prey before taking it. This is more of an accomplishment providing more satisfaction.
All those hunting shows are for show, hunting on stocked game farms.................the shows a great for manufactures of gear.........

Oh by the way, not sure if you dug into Pawn Stars a bit deeper........crooks con artists.............
http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=pawn+stars+fake&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Waiting for spring time, hear there's some good shore fishing around here, streams, rivers etc. Have some new gear I want to try out. Besides giving me a chance to stumble upon some hunting spots.