American Pickers Star Rob Wolfe Discussing His Upcoming Antique Auction and Swap Event

This whole event started from a passion of mine to give back to the community and it’s a nonprofit that we give all the money away to education.
All right, folks. Who is into antiques, vintage cars?
Well, guess what I have for you today?
Rob Wolf from the American Pickers who’s gonna talk about his antique swap and auction which is August 7th through 10th. An amazing show in East Mullen, Illinois. How you doing today, Rod?
>> Yeah, I’m doing good. Doing good. Uh getting ready for the show um which comes together August 7th through the 10th at the uh Bend Expo Center. Um the event details are just get on rust belt americana.com.
Um everything is on there from the car show on Saturday to the auction that’s going to be on Friday and um Saturday from Richmond auctions and then from there it’s just going to be an amazing event. We’ve got some of the best antique dealers in the United States from 42 different states being represented here. So uh it should be fun. We this is our second year doing it and uh just an amazing group of guys.
>> All right. So it’s not just antique cars.
>> No >> vintage cars. Let’s go. I mean, we got oil and gas. Let you tell me what’s >> country store. You’ve got coin operated stuff. You’ve got u um anything to do with general antiques in in general. Uh from toys to petroleiana to advertising.
Advertising can be from cigars to uh whiskey to beer. All that stuff will be here. These guys are the top-notch guys in the country. And when we put this group of guys together, I mean, they have to apply to become part of the show. So that’s the biggest thing is that these guys aren’t just fly by the seat of their pants dealers. These are the best dealers in the country at what they do.
>> How many dealers are we talking about?
>> If you look up the Bend Expo Center in East Molen, um that center is about 30,000 square feet. So that’s just one piece to it. And then we have the outside parking lots. There’ll be about 120 vendors out in those. And then we have a hotel that’s attached to that.
That’ll be roomto room vending. Um there’s 77 rooms just for the roomto room vendors. And then there’s 150 dealers inside. And then Richmond Auctions is in there also. They have another separate entity.
>> All right. Nice. All right. So this is the 60th year anniversary of the Mustang.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> They just had the Mustang uh show there two weeks ago. Every Mustang in the country was at this was at the Bend Expo.
>> Nice. My first my first car was a must.
It was like a 1975. It was terrible. A car turned on without a keys. But that’s neither here nor there. All right. So, let’s talk about You’ve also got an opening reception. So, I don’t want people to, you know, miss out on that if they’re hearing the show and they’re like, I got to get over there. You still do the opening reception? we’re doing.
But the opening reception basically what it is is this whole this whole event started from a passion of mine to give back to the community and um it’s a nonprofit that we give all the money away to education. And most people think, oh, education, we’re not just the regular guy giving scholarships out to the bluecollar workers and things like that. Most of the money that we bring into this system basically gets divied out to elementary schools. And the reason that we’re choosing the elementary schools is because that’s the next generation of what we’re doing right now. We need to get these kids involved. It It’s so hard to say this, but a high school kid is not really involved. He’s more involved in his telephone.
>> Yeah.
>> Is trying to get So, if we can get these younger kids involved in it, that’s the great thing. So, we put together a program that any elementary school teacher in the country can actually apply for money from us. I don’t care if it’s for phonics for your class, if it’s for a reading carpet for you. Anything that makes our elementary school teachers lives easier, then that’s what we want to do. So, that’s kind of where the passion of this came from. Most people in America don’t realize this, but most elementary school teachers in the United States spend out of their own pocket $4 to $600 a year.
>> Out of their own pocket to teach our children.
>> And again, we live in America. We’re supposed to have the best education system, but we don’t.
>> So, >> talk to me about is the application process still open? When is it?
>> It’s always open. It’s always open. As long as we have money, we leave it open.
Um, we’ve had some great donors this year that have brought in some serious money to us. So, you know, we’re hoping to help at least two 300 school elementary school teachers this year. I know last time I looked, we had about 15 of those elementary school teachers applied. Listen, we’re not going to turn you down. If it’s something that you need for your classroom to help you teach these kids, then we want to make it happen. So, it’s the it’s, you know, that’s the biggest problem is that with the elementary school teach, you know, I’ll call these elementary school teachers up and I’ll say, “Why did you apply for a reading carpet for your classroom that’s $320? How come the school won’t give that to you?” They say to me, they look at me and they’re like, “Hey, we can’t get that because there’s so much stuff that we have to apply for from the school that that’s like the last thing on the list, but it’s something that’s needed and we don’t and the paperwork to get it all going is what’s so crazy. So, yeah, we’re going to give you the money. We we’ve given phonics away. We’ve given uh I’ve had teachers send us their Amazon lists. We will basically send you everything on your Amazon list. We want to we want to help you.
>> Nice. So the other um interesting part um in going through the Rust Americana Rust Belts Americana website uh going through all the show what’s going on from the open reception scholarships and all that is your objective of making this area East Molen basically a destination for car antiques and all that%.
>> So talk to me about that. How do you know what’s your object? What’s the specifics of the objective here?
>> Well, the big thing is right now uh and I’ I’ve said it a million times, we are based in the middle of the United States. So, when you think about that, when you talk about bringing antique dealers together, the Chicago Coin Op used to be the biggest show in the whole United States. Actually, one of the biggest in the world because you were bringing in all the Europeans at that time. That show has kind of gone downhill. So, we’re like, hey, let’s bring this show together and maybe we can make that happen because we are in the middle of the United States. So, this is only our this is actually our third year of doing this. The first year was so successful. We brought in 820 automobiles to the show in one year.
That was the very first year we ever did this, which everybody told me I’d get 200 cars. And I said, “You’re nuts.
There’s too many people that know me.” People from all over the country came with their cars just to show them off.
During the auction, during the big event, we had probably 15,000 people show up for it. So, we have the the means to be able to do it. We have a facility now that we can do it in that’s an indoor, that’s an outdoor. We have two hotels that are on the facility. So, it’s just bringing the people together.
This is a new facility this year. And I think that once people get to here and they see what this building’s about, how it’s laid out, how everything is there, you’re going to see more and more dealers trying to sign up for this thing. And every year it’s going to sell out.
>> Love it. All right. So, you’re calling it an auction and antique swap.
>> Yep.
>> Well, how does this different? Like, I’m going to Brimfield. I go to a vendor. I want to buy something. I negotiate with them. Is this the same thing here? or I see a classic car I want or you know where how does the auction part of >> well here’s the biggest difference is the the you I’ve been to Brimfield a million times and and Brimfield’s awesome it’s every antique dealer on the east coast is pretty much there the difference would be that you’re bringing in think about if you could go to Brimfield and be on one field and you had the top dealers on that one field that’d be almost impossible to do that’s what we’re doing here we’re bringing all the top dealers in. When you talk about the car side of it, the car side of this is um it’s not really about the automobiles. It it is, but it isn’t.
It’s the car show is going to be worldclass car show that’s there and all that money that’s being raised is going to the veterans on that side. We want the veterans to basically have um they’re going to be doing stuff with the animals, with dogs, you know, service dogs and things like that. All the money they raise goes to that. That’s great.
We’re just trying to make this thing into more of a community involvement where nothing against Brimfield.
Brimfield is is a a great opportunity and most of the shows in this area or around the United States that I go to are shows that are meant to to gain money to put in someone’s pocket. We’re not doing that.
>> This is the give back show. This is where every nickel, every dime that we make here goes back into the community.
There’s a huge difference there.
>> OB.
>> Yes. I love it. All right. And one thing I want, you know, so Richmond Auctions is handling the auction.
>> Yep. The Bob Swayback collection out of Phoenix, Arizona. One of the best in the country.
>> So talk about that because the pre- bidding is according to the website is now open >> catalog and you can bid online.
>> Yes.
>> So I don’t want people to, you know, miss out on that. Just fly out there. Oh my god, I miss old >> Richmond auctions. Got it. So, yeah, these are some of the rarest 30-inch signs Bob’s been collecting probably for about 35 years. Um, and he just decided out of the blue, he actually has a nonprofit education foundation himself.
And, um, he just out of the blue said he’s, you know, I see it all the time with collectors. They just want to move their collection on to the next thing and next thing you know, they’re collecting cars or they’re collecting these. It’s just I don’t think any collector in the country can say that uh that they’ve stopped collecting. You know what I mean? I think about that when I I I say to myself all the time, I’m going to sell my whole collection off. Well, even if I did, I’d be right back the next day buying more stuff >> because it’s just in your blood. Once you have it, it’s in your blood.
>> Yeah. All right. So So, so let’s get to that. How did it get in your blood? You and your brother.
>> Well, my grandfather was a was a he owned a salvage company up in Chicagoland. My father was a picker. Uh my mom basically I grew up my brother and I grew up with a single mom. Um we didn’t have a lot of money and my mom always made us work for whatever we had.
So if we needed new tennis shoes, she said, “Hey, you pay for half, I’ll pay for the other half.” And that put a work ethic into us. But at the same time, my brother and I were always buying bicycles, buying junk. We were just buying stuff. And we’d always figured out when we got into like 14, 15, 16 years old that we could sell a lot of this stuff. So if we were buying a bicycle or finding a bicycle in the trash and we took it down the road, painted it, put new tires on it, and we put it out front of the house and made and put 30 bucks on it and it sold, we were like, “Wow, this is something that’s new. We can do this.” And as we got older, we just basically got more and more involved in the antiques. And that’s kind of where the passion has been for me. A lot of people think I’m a car and a advertising guy. I am to that one point, but I’m also an antique dealer. If you walked in my shop, I’ve got more antiques in here that I’ve got cars. I can tell you that.
>> And where is your shop? Iowa.
>> Downtown Davenport. I’m in I own a whole city block downtown Davenport. I’ve got probably right now I probably got 15 20 cars down here and uh about 200 neon signs and showcases full of trinkets and just I I got too much stuff. Buildings in the back pole. So yeah, it’s just it’s a it’s a sickness.
>> It is. It’s totally it. Trust me, it’s a sickness. There’s days I walk in here and I tell myself I want to sell it all, but then I get out of that boat and I buy something. my my you know my girlfriend who you met and you proclaimed she was your early you know you were her boyfriend years ago whatever she’s in I’m going to call it it’s like an it’s like a disease she’s sort of infected so the last thing I’m going to do because I’m a football guy is on you know on the weekends go driving around various places because any thrift any tag sale that she sees any of them she has to stop >> you know it’s just all right so talk like what is the difference between collecting and picking >> well I think as a picker. A picker is, you know, you the name the pick, you know, people, if you look up the definition of a picker, way before America pickers ever came upon, you know, my brother and always said to me, “We’re pickers.” Because what we would do on the weekends or during the week, we would get up at 3:00 in the morning.
We would get in the van, we would drive 3 hours, whatever it was, and by 7:30, 8:00, we’d be in a little town, and there’d be a diner there, and we would walk into that diner and buy all the old farmers breakfast and sit down and find out who had all the good stuff. And back in those days, you could buy a lot of primitives. Primitives were good. So then we would take those those things with with that we bought that day and then on the way home we knew all the antique dealers. Now since eBay and everything else has come out those antique dealers have gone to the wayside but god in Iowa we had routes that we could take. There’d be 15 antique dealers. We’d stop by, we’d sell all our goods. So that you talk about the the the word picker. That’s where the picker thing came from. So a collector is a guy that actually just buys and collects.
He’s just a guy that doesn’t want to sell anything. And we meet those guys every day. Everybody meets those guys.
Um I’m a guy that has a passion for buying everything. That’s the problem with me. I’m just I mean, yeah, if I see an old crusty engine, I got to make it run. If I see a bicycle, I got to make it operate. If I see something, a neon sign, I’ve got to revive it. So, it’s I’m a picker slashcollector.
>> Gotcha. All right. So, let’s go back to the show. August 7th through the 10th, East Molen, Illinois. Right along right along the Mississippi River.
>> Right on the Mississippi. Only place in the Mississippi that uh the river changes to east and west. Only place.
>> Wow. I I definitely didn’t expect to learn that on this episode. But that’s why you have to listen to Cut to the Chase because you can always get, you know, a lot of good information. So, back to the show now. Talk to me. I know everything is a highlight. I know everybody is top of the line, but give me your highlight pieces, special guests, demonstrations, appraisers, all that kind of good stuff.
>> Well, one thing, uh, being in in the antique business, I I probably I think that in this hobby, the best people in this hobby are in the antique business.
You and I met at an antique show. So, it’s like I think that people in the hobby are are are I think some of the best in this hobby. So, the guys that I have coming here, most of them don’t set up at shows ever.
So, you’re getting a firsthand I mean, I can name three dealers off top of my head that do not set up at shows.
>> Yeah.
>> Ever. But they’re coming here to set up at my show.
>> Nice. So, they’re >> know that this show is going to be the best in the country. And they’re bringing the be these guys have the best goods that you’ll ever see.
>> Yeah. So, it’s like virgin vendors. I mean, you’re just kidding.
>> Some of them are version and there’s a lot of, you know, we last year we had guys that sold $150,000 worth of stuff in two days, not three, two.
>> We had one dealer that came from California, um, Gas Pump Rob, he had never sold out. I met him 25 years ago at Iowa Gas. Never sold out at a show ever in his life. And last year, he sold everything he had on his trip.
>> First time ever.
>> All right. So, approximately how many cars are going to be there? Um >> the vendors there’ll be about 450. The cars we’re probably expecting about 200 250 somewhere in there.
>> That was only on Saturday. It’s Saturday one day only event.
>> Have you Have you actually gone through all the cars that are going to be shown?
>> No, I don’t have time. I I kind of I kind of took that off my plate because it’s just so much stuff. You wouldn’t believe how many phone calls I get from all over the world about this event. I mean, I just got a text message yesterday from a couple I met three years ago. They come over here every single year for this event from England.
You take the holiday and spend two weeks here.
>> All right. So, have I missed anything that you want to talk about with respect to your show?
>> No. I mean, the biggest thing is it’s a nonprofit. We’re not here to make we’re here to make money, but we’re here to give the money away. So, that’s the biggest thing difference in this show.
And I think that um education is a huge thing for me. Um, if we don’t educate the younger collectors, it can be a car, it can be what you just got to get these kids involved in something. And I’ve said it for 20 years. I go to Hershey every year. There’s not a kid that I don’t engage with when I walk through Hershey because I want I want them to know, hey, thank you for coming. What’s your nice thing here? What’s the greatest thing you found today? I want to engage those kids because that’s what gets them interested in the cars, in the signs, in collecting. And if we don’t do it, look at what happened with the Model T’s.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, when I was a little kid, the only collecting I was doing were baseball cards.
>> Yeah.
>> And uh show and tell. I was six years old.
>> Yeah.
>> I had an amazing collection for a six-year-old kid.
>> And I brought it to my my school and I did a show and tell and they uh left the cards there and I never recovered them.
But but I survived. I survived. They still did baseball card collection. All right, so we’re going to end it on this.
Give me your best advice for newcomers because we’re talking about the youth and preserving, you know, antiques and your whole your whole world. So, what advice do you have for newcomers to swapping, picking, auction buying, all that kind of stuff?
>> Buy what you like. Don’t buy it because of the So many people get hung up on a value. And my grandfather always told me a million times, he said, “Hey, the key to buying is if you buy something that you like, then you don’t have to worry about getting rid of it. There’s always going to be somebody out there that will give you a little bit more money than than what you paid for it.” Or he always said to me, um, my grandma always said, “Hey, uh, if you’re not losing a little bit of money, not a lot of money, but a little bit of money every month on a couple items, then you’re not buying enough.
want to lose a Hey, that’s how that you when you think about on the education side of this 40 years ago. There was no Google.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. My brother and I, we did this stuff off of a gut. That’s how we learned. We learned what was valuable.
We went to the shows. So, what I tell people that are getting into this hobby or starting to get into it or want to get into it, go to the shows. Pay attention to the auctions. It’s that’s how you learn. It’s the only way you can learn. And there’s so much knowledge out there now compared to what it was 40 years ago.
You know, that’s how I learned. I sat down with the old dudes at every show I ever went to and would pick their brains. What was good? What was bad?
What was the stuff they were looking for? Who’s the best collector? And I would search those people’s out. That’s who I’d search out. You’re not going to have to search them out. They’re going to be at my show.
>> I love it. I’ I’ve got a million other questions I would love to ask you about American Pickers and all that. Well, all right. One last question. I mean, I now know that you’re doing a little bit more on the American Pickers. Yep.
>> So, what year are you on? How many episodes? I mean, I I’m up to year 13. I told you the other day that uh I saw the Drag Race with Frank and your brother and >> that’s that was a long time ago.
>> Yes, >> that was a long time ago. They didn’t beat they didn’t beat the they didn’t show me beating my brother on my 32, though.
>> Oh, re Oh, they didn’t really. So, like you said, >> my 32 out there, too. When we race my brother against his 32, >> it’s a reality TV show, meaning that it’s real.
>> Oh, yeah. It’s 100% real. There’s no there’s no there’s no scripted, you know, when we show up to a person’s house. Yeah. The producer might have talked to these people, but you know, myself, Jersey, John, Dan, Danielle, my brother, we don’t ever talk to them.
>> Yeah.
>> We’re there. That’s the first time we’re there. So, it’s I love it that way because it’s makes it real and that’s the key to it. Um, right now I think we’re on season here. You said 13. I think we’re on season 26.
>> Yeah. Tell me about that because >> 100 episodes behind.
>> I Well, I’m I’m trying to slow walk this so I can just watch this till the end of my time. Okay.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I hear Europe in Europe because we’re worldwide. Europe. I think they’re on season 14 or 15 over there.
>> Yeah.
>> So, >> man, you brought me a lot of joy. My girlfriend also, every night we end our nights with the American Pickers or whatever. So, it’s been a great experience. I loved running into you.
This is Rob Wolf. All right. America, a true gem, a true icon, American picker, one of the most extraordinary reality shows you’ll ever watch. And he’s also now doing this antique swap and auction in East Mullen August 7th. You right now it’s consider it already starting. You can already start pre-bidding looking at the inventory. I’m going to drop the info bid.auctions.com and get buy your ticket. There’s a hotel on the premises. There’s so much stuff there. Three days. You don’t want to be late. I’m gonna tell you, talking to my girlfriend, if you are not there at the beginning, a lot of times the best stuff gets picked over. So, don’t wait.
>> Get your ticket >> or you get the last word. Good luck with everything. And what do you want my audience to hear you last say?
>> Uh, russbelt americanana.com. If you if you think that you found it somewhere else, you didn’t you didn’t find it there because I’m going to tell you right now, the best antiques in the world are going to be there August 7th through the 10th. I appreciate you guys.
>> All right. Thank you very much, Rob.
Please, folks, share this episode.
That’s what I want you to do. I don’t even care if you don’t subscribe, don’t rate, don’t review, no comments. I don’t care. Share the episode because you might bring a lot of joy and information and great stuff to a lot of other people. All right, Rob, take care of yourself. Get back to work and I’ll see you on TV.
>> Thank you.
>> That’s all for this episode of Cut to the Chase. But before you go, will you open up your podcast app and give us a fivestar review? You can also leave a comment about what you liked most or other topics you’d like us to cover. And please be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any upcoming shows. Thanks everybody. Be safe out there.