Parts Piled Up Left and Right! | American Pickers (S16) | History

The guys have their work cut out for them on a huge property with more custom ’32 Fords than they have ever seen in one place, and Danielle attempts an important military mission. See more in this scene from Season 16, Episode 15, “Catch-32.”

ERNIE: Yes, I am.
MIKE: Nice to meet you, I’m Mike. How’s it going?
ERNIE: Oh, not too bad. How are you, Mike?
MIKE: Good to see ya.
FRANK: Hey, Ernie. I’m Frank Fritz.
ERNIE: Hello, Frank.
FRANK: Nice to meet ya.

MIKE: Talked to Dani on the phone?
ERNIE: Mm-hm.
MIKE: Here’s a list that she probably went over with, some stuff on there…
ERNIE: Yeah, I got a few of these things.

MIKE: Hey, Dani said that your dad was racing. What did he race?
ERNIE: Oh, he raced in Daytona, ’57…
MIKE: He raced in Daytona?
ERNIE: Yeah, he had a ’32 Ford with a hemi in it.
MIKE: No way, so your dad’s been into it forever?
ERNIE: Oh, for a long time.
FRANK: Sure.

MIKE: And that’s how you got into it?
ERNIE: Yeah, but we spend most of our time butting heads, ’cause we were too much alike. That’s the problem.
MIKE: Oh, yeah? [laughs]
ERNIE: Yeah, yeah.

ERNIE: My father started racing in the ’50s. I think he used to race at the airports.
They used to shut down the airports, and he’d do the runways down there.
My dad is not a flash guy; he’s not a chrome guy. He’s a basic guy, but he’ll make ’em go.

MIKE: What about this Model A? What’s going on with this?
ERNIE: Now, this is one my father got years ago.

MIKE: There’s parts piled left and right, but in the very back, you could see a 5-window Model A Coupe.
ERNIE: I worked for the County and I went on a road call, and there was a yard sale sign, and I got that.
FRANK: Cool.
ERNIE: Yep, at the yard sale.

MIKE: This was at a yard sale?
ERNIE: It was at a yard sale.
MIKE: How much was it back then?
ERNIE: Uh… I think we paid 4 grand for it.
MIKE: No kiddin’.
FRANK: Yeah?

MIKE: What do those signs say?
ERNIE: I think they’re old gas station signs…
FRANK: Esso’s?
ERNIE: Yeah, my buddy had a scrap yard over in Middletown, and he left them for me…

MIKE: 41 cents, man, turn back the clock on that right?
FRANK: No doubt, 41 cents.
MIKE: Those days are gone forever!

FRANK: I can remember when gas went to a dollar.
ERNIE: Yeah.
FRANK: We’d drive extra miles just to pay 98.9. We’re not paying a dollar for a gallon!
MIKE: [laughs]
FRANK: Couldn’t believe gasoline went to a dollar a gallon!

MIKE: Esso started in the early 1900s, but in the 1960s, the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its ad campaign with the theme “Put a Tiger in Your Tank.”
MIKE: So these are dated 1968.
ERNIE: How do you know? I didn’t even know.
MIKE: Right here. Lynchburg, Virginia, ’68.
ERNIE: See, you educated me.

MIKE: Would you sell those?
ERNIE: Yeah…
MIKE: How about 250 for all of them?
ERNIE: Nah… How about 300?
MIKE: These signs are pretty straightforward. They don’t have any graphics on them.
MIKE: 260.
ERNIE: Well, I was gonna say—
MIKE: That’s closer.
ERNIE: I was gonna say split it with me, but 260’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.
MIKE: Alright. Alright, I appreciate it.
ERNIE: Yep.

ERNIE: I wanted to clear a little inventory out. I love signs, advertising.
My father could care less about them.
I was gonna hang it up, but my father don’t like signs hanging up.

FRANK: He wants to keep the walls clean?
ERNIE: Yeah, that’s the way he is.

ERNIE: Now he just stays away from my stuff, and I stay away from his stuff.
We got a good rapport.

FRANK: Now, Danielle, when she gave us a call, she said you might have some other stuff for sale, like some old toys, or some other things?
ERNIE: Oh yeah, they’re upstairs in the upstairs room there if you wanna look at them.
FRANK: Oh, I’d love to.

ERNIE: This is my parents’ house. That’s where I hang my hat most of the time.
FRANK: Alright.

ERNIE: There’s my humble abode, and all the good stuff I got up here.
FRANK: Mike! Died and gone to heaven!
MIKE: [whistles] Whoa!

FRANK: So you’ve collected toys for a while?
ERNIE: Yeah.
MIKE: You do got some toys!
ERNIE: And I don’t have any organization skills. Like, you see that, right?

FRANK: He has friction drives, he has wind-ups, he has cast iron…
He’s got toys on top of toys!

ERNIE: I did a job for my buddy, he had a ’62 Chevy convertible and I welded a patch in for him,
and he got me one of these friction cars.
And I say to myself, “What the hell do I really want that for?”
And I got home, and all of a sudden, I’m buying all these things.
He gave me my first shot, you know?

MIKE: Yeah, yeah!
[all laugh]

FRANK: Yeah!
ERNIE: And then I was hooked! Yeah.

FRANK: The Lincoln Tunnel, made by Unique Art?
ERNIE: Yeah, yeah.
FRANK: Does it work?
ERNIE: Yeah, it works fine.

[mechanics buzzing]

FRANK: Uh-oh!
ERNIE: It used to work. The gear probably fell off.

FRANK: This is a really cool toy.
It’s transportation-related, and it resembles the Lincoln Tunnel,
which connects Jersey to New York City.

♪ ♪ ♪

FRANK: So the Lincoln Tunnel…
I mean, this would be a nice entry-level piece for somebody.
The problem is, it doesn’t wind up.

ERNIE: Uh…

FRANK: But it’d be a great shelf piece, you know?
It’s got all the cars, it’s got the little policeman on it…
This, in working condition, I’ve seen them in the original box go for 300 bucks.

ERNIE: Mm-hm.

FRANK: You know, 250, 2 and a quarter, you know?
They gotta work, you know?

ERNIE: Yeah, I understand.

FRANK: But… I mean, I’d be in at 100.
ERNIE: We could do that. If you wanna do 100, we could do that.
FRANK: That’d be good?
ERNIE: Yeah, it’d be fine.

FRANK: I bought the Lincoln Tunnel toy that doesn’t work, for $100.
But this is going to be a great piece for an entry-level,
somebody who might need a part, somebody who might need one of the cars.

FRANK: Ernie, what about this one?
People were really intrigued with space.
This was made in Japan.

ERNIE: Yeah.

FRANK: This was the ’60s.
ERNIE: Mm-hm.

FRANK: You know?
Probably goes around and bumps into stuff, and goes back and forth.
It works?

ERNIE: When I bought it at an auction a couple of years ago,
“Oh, it works!”
But I get it home and it doesn’t work.
Well, I didn’t argue with anybody. Just that’s the way it is.

FRANK: What would you have to have for this?
ERNIE: Is it worth 100 bucks to ya?
FRANK: I’ll do 100, okay.
ERNIE: Okay, thank you.

ERNIE: Mike was up there, and Mike had interest in the stuff,
but Frank was the guy for that stuff.

FRANK: I mean, I have over 9,000 cast iron toys.
ERNIE: Oh, gosh.
FRANK: I mean, it’s crazy.
ERNIE: Yeah.

FRANK: You know, I mean…
ERNIE: He knows Unique Art, he knows Marx, he just knows.
We call it in the military “subject matter expert.”
That’s what they call it.

MIKE: Frank’s speechless, man!
FRANK: I’m just looking around here…
MIKE: Pace yourself, buddy!

FRANK: How much on the double decker?
ERNIE: Oh, I’m gonna give you a good deal on that.
FRANK: 65 bucks?
ERNIE: Okay. You’re my guy, yeah.
FRANK: Alright.
ERNIE: We’re good.

FRANK: What about… your auto speedway, that’s behind you?
ERNIE: Oh, you like that?
FRANK: Yeah, I do like that. Is that the original cars?
ERNIE: Oh, that’s the original cars!

FRANK: You sure those are the originals?
ERNIE: Yeah, they got little wind-ups on the top,
and what they’ll do, they’ll go in here and they’ll stop
and when the next car hits it, they go back around.

FRANK: I mean, there’s five cars on this track,
it has great graphics on it,
it’s made in the 1950s,
it has the original cars…

ERNIE: I’ve picked this stuff up over the years
at different auctions and different sales, you know?
And this stuff means a lot to me,
but I’d like to see it get out into the world
and somebody else see it besides me, you know?
It’s cool stuff, it really is.

FRANK: It’s cool stuff.
I’ve got the speedway at home.
But I had some different cars,
so why I didn’t realize…

ERNIE: Yeah, yeah. They’re the originals.

FRANK: To be able to have all the cars together…
ERNIE: Yeah.
FRANK: And be able to have the playing field,
I’d do $225 on it.

ERNIE: We can do that.
FRANK: Alright. Thank you.
ERNIE: You got it, baby.

FRANK: I think this could be the gem of my day.
I mean, these are really cool.
There’s a lot of racers out there like this kind of stuff.

ERNIE: This is my cat. Don’t step on her.
Come on, get out of the way!

MIKE: Aw, what’s your cat’s name?
ERNIE: That’s Boots.
MIKE: Boots!
FRANK: What’s up, Boots?
MIKE: What’s up, Boots?
FRANK: What’s up, buddy?

ERNIE: You ever see one of these?
MIKE: O-o-oh… Frank!

ERNIE: This is my father doing all his lathe work on top of it, you know?
FRANK: Oh, I see it.

MIKE: We go into the basement,
and underneath the lathe is a huge pedal car!

MIKE: What kind of car is it?
ERNIE: I looked it up, and it’s an Austin J40.

FRANK: Austin J40…
ERNIE: Yeah, they were made in England.

MIKE: It’s from the late ’40s, early ’50s.
I’ve seen maybe one or two of these,
and usually when you see them, they’re restored.
It’s got the stance, it’s got the lines,
it’s air flow, it’s streamlined, it’s all of those things.
It’s European. It’s not American, but…
it’s massive, and it’s real steel.

MIKE: Where’d you get this at?
ERNIE: I got that at a junkyard.
I used to work in Waters[?] Junkyard.
Some guy brought it in from Warwick.

FRANK: That was gonna trash it?
ERNIE: Yeah.

MIKE: I’m glad you kept it.
ERNIE: When I was at the scrapyard,
this was the kind of stuff I lived for.
This motor was with it, so that goes with it too.

MIKE: That motor was with it?
Was the motor mounted in it when you got it?
ERNIE: Just laying inside it.
MIKE: Oh, just laying in there, okay.

MIKE: This thing has been altered.
You know, they did a lot of cutting to the inside,
they put a motor on the inside,
they cut the seat out of it.

MIKE: Yeah, and there’s a little gas tank right here.
ERNIE: Is there a gas tank in it?
MIKE: Yeah, a little tiny one right here…

ERNIE: So many years, I don’t remember…
MIKE: Got the couple little spare plugs in there.
ERNIE: Yeah, I know.

MIKE: I have to think about the value beyond the chop job.
But overall, when you look at it, it’s stunning!

♪ ♪ ♪

ERNIE: Here’s the original wheels that came with it.
But they don’t bolt on there unless they had something missing
off the thing at one time or another.

MIKE: Oh yeah, okay.
Well, let me see.
There was something that spidered here,
that would have mounted here.

MIKE: I’m trying to figure out what has to be made
in order to put the wheels back on there.
Because you can’t sell it like this.

MIKE: So, you’re talking about making some sort of a…
a spider…

ERNIE: Yeah.

MIKE: Like a piece of metal that, the diameter of this,
goes on with cotter pins
that you can take the wheel on and off.

FRANK: With three pins.

MIKE: And it spiders off into here.
ERNIE: Yep.

MIKE: I want to do the work to it.
I want to take it to the next level.

MIKE: Would you listen to a number on this?
ERNIE: Yeah.

MIKE: You know, I’ve got a good metal guy.
It’s just, you know,
you don’t want to just hand him a blank cheque.

ERNIE: I know that.

MIKE: [laughs]

MIKE: I wanna throw a number at him
that he doesn’t really have to think too long about,
where I can still make some money.

MIKE: How about, uh… 1,800?
And that’s with—
in order to present it to sell it,
you’d have to manufacture something to put the wheels on.

ERNIE: Yeah, I understand.

MIKE: There’s issues,
but the quality of the car,
and the rarity of the car,
go beyond those.
That’s why it still has value.

MIKE: What do you think of 18?
ERNIE: I’m good with it if you’re good with it.
MIKE: You wanna sell it for 18?
ERNIE: Okay.
MIKE: Thank you.
ERNIE: You’re welcome.
MIKE: Thank you.

ERNIE: I thought that was a more than fair offer for the thing.

MIKE: Alright, this is the heavy end!
ERNIE: That’s what you’re supposed to have, the heavy end!
MIKE: [grunts]

MIKE: Alright! Set her right here.
Got the number 3 on the back.

ERNIE: Oh, yeah.
MIKE: I like all the…
ERNIE: Shavings?
MIKE: The shavings from being under the lathe, man.
MIKE: It’s an amazing piece.

MIKE: I see its true potential.
I’m gonna pay Ben to work on it.
Once he’s done with it,
I’ll be able to put a number on it.

MIKE: [laughs]

ERNIE: It rolls!
MIKE: It rolls. It actually rolls!

ERNIE: I’m happy they got the stuff.
It’s stuff I actually like myself and enjoy,
but I can move onto the next item that way, you know?

FRANK: Tip that back my way.

FRANK: Today was a win-win for all three of us.
Mike and I got some exciting items,
and we enjoyed our day with Ernie.

ERNIE: Okay. Again, pleasure meeting you.
MIKE: I’ll say a prayer for Ray.
ERNIE: Thank you.
FRANK: Thanks, Ernie.

FRANK: I really wish we could have met his father, Ray,
’cause you could tell from his cars,
he’s a passionate and talented man.

MIKE: Drive that 240!
ERNIE: See you, guys!
[Frank honks horn]
MIKE: Alright!