Best of the Barn: Classic Picks | American Pickers

MIKE WOLFE: Now, we start changing lanes on this pick.
Things are starting to amp up a little bit.
We found some architectural salvage, and that’s big.
Oh yeah, this is killer, dude.
It’s like we’ve walked through the desert, and all of a sudden, we find an oasis.
FRANK FRITZ: So they’ve collected a lot of different stuff here, but– BILL: Just everything.
Oh, we’ve got a good one there, huh?
FRANK FRITZ: Yeah, its Springfield, Illinois, HW Dresch.
BILL: Was over on 4th Street, originally.
This was like soda water.
You would use it till it’s all gone.
Then company would come around and pick them up, you know?
Just like milk.
So they make a lot of different ones.
Some are very ornate.
But this has a nice, lead top.
It’s all complete.
Something you’d sell?
We’d part with that.
25 bucks.
I can do 30.
Squeeze you a little bit here, come on.
25, 30.
That’s fine.
$30, you got a deal.
– Yeah, that’s fine. – That’s good.
I like it.
Bill!
OK, so this is an older helmet, made in Paris.
The leather is still intact.
BILL: Kind of a vintage-looking helmet.
It’s probably from– yeah, I’d say it’s probably from the late ’30s, maybe ’40s.
It’s been painted.
I don’t know, 35 bucks.
I would do 35 on that.
OK, cool.
I appreciate you.
You find anything, Frankie?
FRANK FRITZ: I’m looking.
Bill, what about these lamps?
I mean, they’re almost– I don’t like to say it, but they’re almost so ugly that they’re cool.
These lamps have got great ornate bases to ’em.
Well, sure, they might need to be rewired.
Not a big deal– not a deal-breaker for me whatsoever.
I’m a lamp guy.
No chips.
I’m visualizing them all cleaned up, you know what I mean, with the green, a little bit of gold.
You know, at $50, you know what I mean, I’m working on a small margin there.
But I’m trying to be fair.
Well, I think that’ll be a fair margin.
All right, you got it, buddy.
Thank you.
BILL: Them lamps Frank had, I don’t think them were too good of an idea for me.
But Frank liked ’em, so maybe they’ll find them– put in his shop or his house or something.
Or he might just send them to somebody for a Christmas present.
[laughs] MIKE WOLFE: Very cool.
This is a lap steel guitar.
This is what they call a lap steel.
Looks like it’s mid-’50s.
It’s made by a company called Oahu.
Is that the amp for it?
BILL: This is the amp that went with it.
Oh wow, OK.
All right.
BILL: Grandfather bought this for my mom when she was in grade school, which had to be somewhere in the ’50s.
The deeper we go into this building, the further back we go into Bill’s family’s timeline.
Now, we’re starting to find personal items instead of just construction material.
We’re talking 650 bucks is retail on both.
What would you feel comfortable?
What would you feel comfortable?
I know you gotta take it back– – Yeah, I mean, we gotta– BILL: –clean it up, tune it up– –make some money on ’em.
I mean, here’s the deal– this stuff is easy for us to sell because we’re in Nashville.
It’s Music City.
We get a lot of musicians coming in.
I don’t know the condition of that, as far as like, if that even works.
How about– I’m sure– How about 400 bucks?
I was thinking 450.
All right, let’s do it.
Will you do it for that?
Yeah, we’ll do 450.
This is perfect– you know, a motorcycle helmet, a lap steel guitar, an amp.
All of this stuff starts to add up.
It’s very cool.
That’s awesome.
This pick reminds me of Frankie and I digging on the back roads of Iowa 30 years ago.
We made a little dent here, but you got a lot of stuff.
Still got a long way to go.
We got to dig through somebody’s barn.
Then, we got to pull back the layers.
We got to get dirty.
And we got to like, discover things.
– Nice to meet you, Bill. – Nice to meet you, too.
Pleasure.
Thanks for your hospitality.
Thanks for coming.
You know, this was one of those days where it brought it all back.
[two honks] See you, Bill.
See you later.
Hey, are you Del?
I am. How are you guys doing?
Good. How are you doing today?
Pretty good.
You’re off the beaten path here a little bit.
Yeah.
– You talk to Danielle? – Yeah.
I’m Frank.
Hey, I’m Mike.
Nice to meet you.
Dani said that you guys used to have a car museum here.
Yeah.
From day one, my mom and dad have always collected everything.
My dad’s museum came to be because he just continually collected more and more cars and more and more things and had to have a bigger and bigger building to put it in.
So when did that close?
Oh, well, my dad’s been gone for about 30 years.
Oh, wow.
Oh, so a long time ago.
Yeah, so we’ve just been kind of liquidating ever since.
OK.
Wow, look at this.
Look at how long that is.
This is deceiving.
MIKE: [inaudible] is this sucker, man?
Dang.
FRANK: Jeez.
DEL: The look on people’s faces– you know, they come to the middle of Kansas thinking they’re going to see an old Model A or a Model T.
MIKE: Man, this place just keep going.
FRANK: Oh, my gosh.
And you go through here, and you’d see 190SLs and Delahayes, and everything you can imagine– Reo.
You know, there was just such cool stuff.
That’s the sign?
That was the original sign my dad had done.
No way.
Frankie, look, it’s got a Cord on it.
Did you guys have this car?
We had a 4-door Cord.
We had a Beverly. We did not have a convertible.
Are you kidding?
Love those cars, man.
The dash in them– it’s like you’re in an airplane or something. DEL: Oh, yeah.
FRANK: So neat. DEL: Way cool, way cool.
MIKE: Del’s father’s passion for cars was contagious, and it’s really what set Del on the path of how he makes a living now.
Ooh, Frank, look at that.
That’s a 1952 XK 120.
Dang.
DEL: So we’ve got 17,000 miles on it.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at this thing.
My dad would have been about 33 years old when he bought this.
– Your dad would have been? – Yeah.
– Can I sit in it? – Out in Salina, Kansas.
Yeah, sure.
MIKE: And that steering wheel’s up close and personal, man.
It’s like right on you.
DEL: Just like NASCAR.
Look at this thing. Wow.
And the miles– 17,000 miles.
Is this the original leather?
Yes, it is. It’s all original.
Yeah, it’s a neat car.
It’s incredible.
All broken in and everything.
That’s original paint?
Original paint.
Frank, do you want to try to get in it?
– I’d say, yeah. – Let’s see you get in there.
Come on.
So I got in the Jag.
There you go.
There you go.
I can just see myself going down the winding road.
I can touch the pedals and the brake.
I think that I’m double 007– Pierce Bronson, 007.
So what do you guys value this at?
It’s not for sale.
We’re keeping this.
Oh, man, I don’t blame you.
Lots of stuff has been here longer than I’ve been alive.
There’s cars that are here that were bought in the ’50s.
He would buy them, park them, shut them off, and that was it.
What’s going on with this, Del?
What can you tell me about this?
That’s a ’64.
A ’64.
Yeah, and look at the mileage of it.
The mileage is pretty low– 30-some thousand miles.
I throw you an offer?
Sure.
How about $6,200?
You know, I just– I know that just to quit beating around the bush, I’d take 7 grand.
You’d take 7 grand?
Today was one of those things where I could see Del– he wants to get the top dollar.
I like this a lot, man.
It’s a Ford– Taunus.
Taunus.
Del is in the car business.
He sells cars.
So that means every day, all day, it’s a negotiation for him.
This guy is good at what he does.
He could literally do a TED talk on negotiating.
Here’s a box of horns.
[blows horn] This was all down in my dad’s room in the house we grew up in.
OK.
He actually had a padlock on the door.
We knew where the key to the padlock was.
We’d be real careful and sneaky.
You know, we’d go in there and not touch nothing.
And my dad would come home and say, you were in my room, weren’t you? You know, he knew, Did you admit it?
Well, of course, we admitted it.
Yeah. [laughter] He put a hair on the lock.
This is the kind of stuff, to me, that’s just as important as the car itself.
Because these are the parts and pieces that make a car different, make it unique.
His father was collecting hood ornaments, and lights, and horns, and gauges, because that’s the gingerbread, man, you know?
A lot of times, you’ll find a car in a field, or in a barn or something, and a lot of this stuff is missing, or it’s just in such poor shape that you can’t do anything with it.
A lot of these would be used for people that are going to put them on a survivor car.
Like, for example, that, you know.
The wing on the back is broken off of that.
I’d do $1,000 on this box.
[sighs] I don’t know.
Let me ponder on that just a little bit longer.
Ponder on that.
Hey, how about this mirror?
How about the mirror?
Want me to make you an offer on that?
Sure.
$200.
I’ll do that.
Because I’d put that on a motorcycle, too.
I won’t even argue with you.
Right there.
That would clamp right on a bike.
Bam.
There was some boxes that they went through that I hadn’t seen the contents for probably 20 years.
So it was kind of fun to go through that.
I’m glad to see some of these cars will stay in the family.
My youngest son will get this ’52 Riley behind me.
And my oldest son is going to get the ’35 Graham behind me.
So yeah.
I mean, I’m glad to see some of them will stick around.
All right, man.
It’s been fun.
Thank you.
I appreciate you.
Appreciate it.
His father handed down the passion to him.
And it’s something that still keeps the wheels rolling.
[horn honks] See you, Del!
See you later!
Take care!
MIKE WOLFE: Oh, wow. -This place just keeps going!
FRANK FRITZ: Oh, yeah, it does.
BOTH: Hey! – Hey, how’s it going?
FRANK FRITZ: Not too bad, thanks.
MIKE WOLFE: How are you doing, man?
FRANK FRITZ: You Dave? – Yes, I am.
FRANK FRITZ: How are you doing? You talk to Danielle?
I did. FRANK FRITZ: I’m Frank.
Frank. MIKE WOLFE: Good to meet you.
Hey, I’m Mike. – Mike.
Hi. Who’s this?
Hi, I’m Sally, David’s mom MIKE WOLFE: Hi, Sally.
FRANK FRITZ: Hi, Sally. MIKE WOLFE: Good to meet you.
I appreciate you. – Oh.
MIKE WOLFE: This your place? – Nice to meet you.
FRANK FRITZ: Nice to meet you. – Yes, it is.
FRANK FRITZ: Pleasure. MIKE WOLFE: Oh, it’s beautiful.
SALLY: Thank you.
MIKE WOLFE: Danielle was saying that your husband was into architectural salvage. – Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Well, we started with fixing the house and collecting parts.
And then when you don’t use them all, then you end up with a collection.
And what do you do with a collection?
And then all of a sudden, you realize you’re in business.
That’s right.
You build another building is what you do.
That’s right, exactly right.
My father ran a business called River House Wares & Restoration.
He would sell architectural salvage– doors, windows, hardware.
Where do you want to start first?
Where you want to look around at?
Probably the mill’s going to be the best place to start, which is just down the street. – OK.
All right. FRANK FRITZ: OK.
MIKE WOLFE: Well, hey, it was very nice to meet you.
FRANK FRITZ: Nice to meet you, Sally.
Yeah, nice to meet you.
DAVE: He definitely had a love for collecting.
His imagination level was totally off-scale.
You know, it was just unbelievable.
He could see a piece sitting on the side of the road, and he could probably name almost a dozen things of what you could do with it.
This was originally a gristmill.
MIKE WOLFE: OK.
DAVE: It was first built here in Rensselaer Falls in 1846.
Frank, look at this, man!
FRANK FRITZ: I know.
Where’s my fishing pole?
[laughter] Wow.
DAVE: Actually, we do get a lot of fishing up here.
FRANK FRITZ: Do you?
MIKE WOLFE: Does this look like a Hamm’s beer commercial?
I mean, it looks just– FRANK FRITZ: Look at that!
MIKE WOLFE: Looks like Huck Finn lost his raft there.
DAVE: Yeah. FRANK FRITZ: Oh, my gosh.
Look at that. That’s beautiful!
MIKE WOLFE: Land of the sky blue waters.
That’s a big property.
DAVE: Yeah, it is.
MIKE WOLFE: So your dad must have had a blast here, man.
DAVE: Oh, yeah.
My parents found this place back in 1975.
It had been abandoned for many, many years.
My father decided to restore the house.
And then his imagination and creativity took over with all the different design influences that he had seen getting pieces here, getting pieces there, and just made it his own.
Dad used to be in the architectural salvage business for the last 40-plus years.
MIKE WOLFE AND FRANK FRITZ: Wow.
And, you know, I went with him on some local picks, but he’s been doing it from– anywhere from East Coast to West Coast, man.
You name it, he’s been there.
– Oh, he was traveling that far? – Oh, yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: Wow! DAVE: So, yeah.
And– So this is part of his door inventory?
DAVE: Yep.
FRANK FRITZ: This is door world.
DAVE: This is door world here.
FRANK FRITZ: Dang!
Over 1,000 doors in inventory.
FRANK FRITZ: You’re kidding me. MIKE WOLFE: No way.
FRANK FRITZ: Wow.
DAVE: And each one of them is different, and each one has a different story– FRANK FRITZ: Oh, I bet. MIKE WOLFE: Of course, yeah.
DAVE: –as to where they came from and how they got here.
MIKE WOLFE: Whew.
My father found the original integrity of a piece was more important than making any money out of it.
And this is the reason that everybody in the area always called him “The Door Man”.
He would sell them to folks that were trying to rebuild their homes and keep it as authentic as possible.
I mean, look at these.
Look at these pocket doors.
DAVE: Stuff like this he would pull from any place that was coming down, or somebody was rebuilding because they weren’t going to use it.
They all wanted to go to modern material.
FRANK FRITZ: Of course. MIKE WOLFE: Yeah.
DAVE: And you know, I mean, you can clearly see he had an eye for what was going to be worth something.
FRANK FRITZ: Oh, heck yeah.
If there was a single piece that you picked out, he could tell you exactly where it came from and how much of a pain it was to get it there.
[laughs] Look at these.
FRANK FRITZ: Wanted one like that?
MIKE WOLFE: That’s a great door, man.
Wow.
This is a storefront door.
FRANK FRITZ: Yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: All right, let’s pull that out.
Frank, here, let me hand it to you.
FRANK FRITZ: I got you. MIKE WOLFE: Pull that out.
FRANK FRITZ: All right.
I mean, obviously, the glass is missing, but– MIKE WOLFE: Yeah.
These are narrower– storefront door.
Here, grab that one.
Let’s see those outside there.
Wow, look at these.
These are bruisers too.
FRANK FRITZ: Oh, yeah.
[interposing voices] MIKE WOLFE: Ah.
Look at that, man.
DAVE: Yeah, I know.
The panel on this is gorgeous. MIKE WOLFE: Look at that.
So look at this.
This is what they call dental molding.
FRANK FRITZ: Yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: See that?
And then look at this. I mean, wow.
FRANK FRITZ: Very intricate.
MIKE WOLFE: Wow.
I mean, there’s just so much going on when you stand back and look at that.
It’s incredible.
I mean, these are the kind of doors that you build a space for.
Yeah.
And I am pretty sure that there’s another one of these in there, so it’s a matching set.
MIKE WOLFE: Yeah, I saw the other one.
Here, look at this side.
OK.
This is the interior. FRANK FRITZ: Interior.
This is interior.
When you walked up to the house, this is the money shot.
This is what you saw. Yeah.
Here, you got it?
It’s crazy.
So these dots here, these dots with the lines, that’s called Eastlake design.
Eastlake design was started by an architect named Charles Eastlake, and it’s considered part of the late Victorian period.
Very cool.
And then look at the way these are notched here.
DAVE: Inside, yeah.
FRANK FRITZ: And why would that be?
MIKE WOLFE: It’s just all decorative.
I mean, it was designed, you know?
[interposing voices] MIKE WOLFE: [inaudible] flip that one around, Frankie.
DAVE: –inside, yep. MIKE WOLFE: Look at that.
This is what I was talking about as far as, like, storefront doors. DAVE: Mm-hmm.
MIKE WOLFE: Obviously, later on, this was drilled out for a deadbolt. What was your dad selling doors like this for?
DAVE: A set of that, he would probably selling those for $500, $600 for the pair.
Would you do $400 on these?
$425?
Yeah, I’ll do $425.
I’m just happy to get them. – Yeah.
But, I mean, I’m about– maybe a little more or at about the same margin he was at. DAVE: Sure, yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: Because I’m not the end result for these guys.
DAVE: Yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: What I do is I sell to guys that do architectural salvage.
DAVE: Mm-hmm.
So these doors here, you’ve got two of these.
DAVE: There should be another one.
MIKE WOLFE: Yeah, let me see that.
FRANK FRITZ: I know there’s one somewhere.
MIKE WOLFE: Yeah, let’s grab that.
DAVE: It’s right here, is it? FRANK FRITZ: [groans] MIKE WOLFE: All right. – I got this end.
MIKE WOLFE: All right, – You got it?
DAVE: Yeah, I’ll get this other side here.
FRANK FRITZ: You got it? Sit her down?
DAVE: [grunts] FRANK FRITZ: Woo!
I know that I probably have all the hardware for this one too. – Oh, these things are bruisers.
Look at that. Look how thick this is.
DAVE: Oh, yeah.
You need to have some muscles to push those suckers.
Looks how thick this is.
Look how thick that door is.
DAVE: All right, now let me– MIKE WOLFE: Whoa. FRANK FRITZ: There you go.
MIKE WOLFE: This is full service.
FRANK FRITZ: There you go, dude. DAVE: (PANTING) Yeah.
Oh, I’ve gotten used to moving these around a lot.
I know.
You and me both, man.
So what would you sell these for?
FRANK FRITZ: These are beautiful.
MIKE WOLFE: You want me to make you an offer on these?
Being bigger and– MIKE WOLFE: They’re more elaborate.
DAVE: Yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: But they’re– I mean, they’re cool, man. DAVE: Yeah.
MIKE WOLFE: They’re real cool.
I’d have to sit firm at $500 bucks on the set, for those.
MIKE WOLFE: I’m going to do $600.
– Sounds good. – All right.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
I”m here, man.
Three window coupe?
Three window coupe.
Oh, my gosh.
MAN: Before we go, Bob’s taking us outside in the rain to show us something really special– a 1940 Lincoln Zephyr.
What?
Look how it just lays down.
You could ski off of it.
Oh, my gosh.
To me, this was the pinnacle of it all.
Yeah.
So this car was in the back of a six car garage in Dearborn, and one of many that my dad had kind of scattered around.
My plan was to do something with it– either restore it, or street rod it.
You see so many of them, especially in this condition, street rodded.
Because now they wouldn’t take an original car, like, really nice, and street rod it.
They’d take something like this, and do it.
The ’39 is the most desirable, but ’40 is the last year.
They’re just so elegant, they’re beautiful, they’re on point with everything that you think about in a 1930s coupe.
They’re long, they’re lean, they’re low.
The front end, when it comes at you, it’s just– oh, man.
It’s like a new pair of underwear, man.
They’re perfect.
Does the trunk open?
Let’s see.
OK, we’re free on the side.
There we go.
OK, you can’t bend it too much, though.
What do you see, Mike?
Wow.
We’ve got a radiator.
Look how much space there is in here.
I tell you what, the squirrels have been getting in here.
And look at this.
That’s the original color, right there.
Nice.
It’s kind of a blue, huh?
Beautiful.
Yeah.
When I was 18, I wanted to be so much like my dad.
I wanted to make this car my hot rod, like he did with his Corvette killer.
This is the car that I was going to make personal to me.
It’s frickin’ rad.
That dream has kind of faded over time.
I’m serious about the car.
I get underneath it, it looks basically like the rest of the car.
Mhm.
I get inside of it.
The engine is not original.
OK, yeah.
So Frankie, this is supposed to have a V12.
Yeah.
That looks like a 351.
MAN: Needs a lot of work.
Doesn’t have the original engine.
There’s some body work that’s been done to it.
There’s pieces and parts that are missing, but– it doesn’t take away from the beauty, to me.
What are you going to do with it?
What are your plans for it?
Well– I had to be honest with myself.
To hang onto something until it became just a pile of rust really wouldn’t be fair.
I– I can part with it.
I can let it go.
Price wise, about 15.
15 grand?
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s more than I’d like to spend, because it is a serious project.
Right.
And it’s not like you see barn find Zephyrs all the time, you know?
Mhm.
So what are you– what are you thinking?
I’d like to be in it for, like, seven, because I’m going to have a grand in shipping it, so I’d have eight in it.
I’ve been down this road before.
I know how much work it’s going to take to take it to the next level.
What I’m looking at, basically, is a shell, a frame.
There’s no interior in it.
But I don’t want to walk away without it.
What’s your bottom number on the car?
My bottom number would be eight grand.
Let’s to it.
All right.
We’re doing it.
We’re gonna do eight grand on the car.
Wow.
Good deal.
Thank you, Mike.
We’re going to have Danielle call you, and she’s going to figure out shipping on this.
And we can get this out of here in a couple of days.
OK.
But the biggie is this has to be out of here.
OK.
Because if we send a shipper over here, and he sees this, he’s leaving.
Right.
He needs to have a straight shot.
OK?
So we’ve got four wheel drive on the van.
Sure.
If we move this stuff in the front, I think we could pull it out of here.
I want to see it come out of this catacomb.
All right.
[inaudible].
Right.
Pull through, Frankie.
Keep going.
This car is rare.
It’s a three window Zephyr coupe.
OK, crank it, crank it, crank it.
I’m cranking.
All right, you gotta keep going.
Keep going.
I think all we need to do is clean it up, assemble the parts that are there– Whoa!
And sell it.
There it is, dude.
We did it, man. – We did it.
Look at it.
Look at it.
It was a bit surreal for me to see the car outside, not under cover anymore.
It’s been so long for me to actually walk around the entire car.
How did I do?
You did great, brother.
It’s out.
Yeah, see, now the shipper can– he’ll come in, and he’ll take this, and winch it right on up.
Yeah.
All right.
Who knows, it could have been another 25 years before anything happened with that car.
You’re a brave man, Mike.
These cars are so hard to find.
To have the opportunity to buy it is a blessing.
This is it, bro.
Seen the exhaust coming out the side.
This is it.
This was an opportunity for us that we couldn’t pass up.
All right.
I like it.
Lots of trim.
All right, hey, let’s get you paid.
OK.