Vintage Coke and Pepsi Gems *VERY RARE* (Season 25) | American Pickers | History

[phone rings] Mike: Dani D, what’s up?
Danielle: Morning, guys. How are the backroads treating you?
Mike: Treating us well. What you got?
Danielle: I’m sending you guys to a grocery store that was started in 1929.
Mike: Really? Rob: Really? Damn.
Mike: So, what do they got? Like, old mercantile stuff?
Danielle: It’s one of those great family businesses that’s just been around forever.
I’ve been talking to Michele and she’s amazing.
And her grandfather is actually the one who started that business.
Just for context, Michele’s father is the one who actually started the five-and-dime.
Rob: So, he has everything in the – in the town?
Mike: Her family’s been in business since the ’20s on this street, in these buildings?
Danielle: Wild, isn’t it? Mike: Wow!
Danielle: The five-and-dime closed, like, a couple years ago, but the grocery store closed, like, twenty years ago.
Mike: They got a lot to be proud of.
They’ve had their business in that town that long.
Danielle: I think they’re just really hopeful to have one of these buildings used again.
Mike: Alright! Send us the address.
Danielle: Alright, bye.
Rob: Alright. What’s the address?
What’s the address?
Mike: What? Rob: The place.
Mike: It’s up here on the right-hand side.
Right here, right here. Pull up here. Right- Rob: I am. Mike: Where are you going?
Rob: Hey, is this Michele?
Michele (phone): Yes, this is she.
Rob: Hey, um, this is Mike and Rob Wolfe.
We’re out front of your store.
Danielle, uh, talked to you about, uh, coming down and seeing some stuff?
Michele (phone): Yes, she did…
Rob: Okay. Alright. This way.
Mike: Okay. Rob: Okay. Alright.
Michele!
Michele: Hey! Rob: How are you?
Michele: How are y’all? Mike: Hey!
Michele: Surprised?
Rob: Rob Wolfe. Nice to see you.
Mike: Hey, I’m Mike.
Michele: My name is Michele Hiers, and I am from the small town of Ehrhardt, South Carolina.
Jason: Jason. Mike: Sup, man.
Rob: Good to see you.
Michele: Jason, he is my stepson.
He’s worked on the houses around that we have.
He’s worked on the store.
He’s a jack of all trades, so he does a little bit of everything.
Jason: You all have fun, I’m gonna stay here and keep on cleaning up.
Mike: Thanks, buddy.
Michele: Alright, we’re gonna head to the grocery store.
Mike: You’re finally getting into, like, just kind of removing some stuff?
Michele: Trying to figure out what we’re gonna do, yep.
Michele: The past two or three years I just became involved more with the business.
Um, my dad has dementia.
He couldn’t keep up with everything.
Michele: When I was a kid, the streets were busy, especially on Saturdays.
That’s when everybody came to town.
Mike: Yeah.
Michele: Right here was the drugstore, and this was a tack shop.
Beautiful brick buildings.
Michele: Back in ’80s, ’90s, the bigger stores, they started coming in.
That did hurt.
Mike: When the big box stores started coming in on the highway, that’s how the game changed.
And the consumer was the same.
Their wants and needs were the same.
But the game had changed.
Unfortunately, that’s what happened pretty much to every small town across America.
Mike: So, when did these go away?
Michele: These went away probably about…
…15 years ago? Mike: Okay.
Mike: When a business closes, and you can’t rent that building, the building starts to deteriorate.
That’s what happened.
There was no tenant to fill that space, there was no use for that building anymore on Main Street.
Michele: And then right across the street, we’ve got Granddaddy’s grocery store.
Michele: Daddy will tell you, well, there’s nothing left on Main Street, ’cause, I mean, he remembered when it was booming.
Michele: He opened the store in 1929.
Mike: You have to respect Michele and her family for holding on as long as they did when so many buildings and businesses were vanishing around them.
Michele: Alright, in 2000, my Granddad passed.
When he passed, Daddy just pretty much closed the door and left everything as is, and he went to the dime store.
Mike: The level of respect that this family has for each other, a lot of people maybe wouldn’t understand.
It’s like, why would someone want to close that place with all that money sitting inside?
Because inventory is money.
Mike: This is cool.
Mike: But to Michele and her family, it was done out of respect and love.
They left it exactly the way it was because it was a reminder of how things used to be.
Just locking in time so many memories.
Mike: Oh wow, you guys got a butcher shop!
Michele: Oh yeah, Uncle Brighton, he butchered meats.
Oh gosh, ham, bologna, and liver pudding.
Mike: Liver pudding?
Rob: Liver pudding? Michele: Liver pudding.
Rob: They still serve it down here?
Michele: Mhm.
You can still get it. I’m gonna get y’all some.
Before y’all leave! Mike: [laughs] Rob: This is the epitome of a real southern grocery store.
This place was the hustle and bustle back in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s.
These places are gone, man.
Just to be in there, you can feel the presence of all the people that used to come here.
Mike: There’s a Coke thermometer right there.
It’s inside the counter.
There you go.
That one’s in decent shape. That’s in really nice shape.
Rob: It’s made by the Donaldson company.
Mike: In the U.S.A. Rob: Yeah.
1960s. $40.
Michele: 60.
Michele: I got to bickering.
I get that from Daddy, I mean, going back and forth.
Rob: 45.
Michele: 55.
Mike: [laughs] Michele: [laughs] Mike: You’re right, he didn’t throw anything away.
Michele: No.
When Daddy closed the doors, he would just come in here to check on things.
Mike: Being in a space like this that’s that large with this much history and this much inventory, you really have to take time to go through everything.
Michele: And of course, it’s still like canned goods.
Mike: There’s still gum in here. Michele: Don’t y’all want some?
Mike: Oh my gosh, for sure.
Mike: Underneath stuff, in boxes, under the counters, in the cooler.
Rob: There we go.
Mike: There we go.
Michele: You can tell that’s been in there.
Rob: Coca-Cola.
Michele: The round Coca-Cola thermometer.
When I’d go in there to get stuff, it’d be so cold, I’d be looking at the thermometer.
Michele: What are you thinking? Rob: 150.
Michele: You know you can go to 2.
Rob: 165.
Michele: 180.
Mike: [laughs] Mike: You know, it’s like you never know where you’re going to find something because they were stashing stuff everywhere.
Mike: Okay, what about the mirror here?
This is really cool.
Michele: That has been there forever.
Mike: I can tell it’s been there forever. Look at that.
It’s for bread, it’s sliced bread.
Michele: Claussen’s. Mike: 90 bucks.
Michele: 125. Got a star, wow.
Mike: 100 bucks.
Michele: 115.
Mike: I got – I got to have a little bit of a margin.
Michele: Alright, 110.
Mike: Michelle must have been on the wholesale side of things.
She’s got her negotiation game down.
Michele: 105.
Mike: Alright. Rob: 102.
Michele: 105…
Mike: God, you’re getting me every time!
[all laughing] Rob: Hey, Michele. Michele: Yep?
Rob: The old Lance Peanuts jars.
Rob: Lance is one of those companies that had a variety of products.
Peanut brittle, crackers, peanuts themselves.
They date anywhere from 1929 all the way up to 1960s.
Rob: Yeah, these are the older ones.
The ones that have the arrows on them.
These have no arrows on them.
But they’re all the same lids.
250.
Michele: 3? Rob: 275.
Michele: 290.
Rob: Let me ask you this. How about- Michele: You got something going through your mind right now?
Rob: Well, I actually fell in love with that fan when I came in.
Rob: It looks like it’s a 1940s-type fan.
If you can hang this up in a shop now, it would move air with style.
Rob: 4 and a quarter for the pair.
Michele: 450.
Rob: I’m gonna do what you did to me earlier to me today.
435.
Michele: 440.
Rob: [laughs] I’m doing it. Michele: Okay.
Mike: Every once in a while, we are finding a small piece of advertising hanging on the wall.
Mike: Here’s one in rough shape. Michele: Yeah, I know that.
Mike: Right here, look at this one.
This one here is not in the best shape either, but…
Rob: What’s that one say, Mike?
Mike: It’s Royal Crown, but it’s all peeling but it’s still cool.
And then you got this one but there’s no advertising on it.
Mike: Whether it’s advertising on a mirror or a thermometer, there’s like little pieces that are left.
Mike: So, you’ve got these three.
Michele: Three. Ok.
Mike: I think – am I missing anything else here?
This was – was this the office?
Michele: Yes. That was the desk, yep.
Rob: This was the desk?
Mike: I love the filing system.
Michele: They knew where everything was though.
They knew where everything was.
Mike: These three. 50 bucks.
Rob: Condition is everything.
Michele: I’ll go about on that because they are in bad shape.
I’d rather go 60- Mike: Wow.
Rob: Man, I was- Mike: Wow.
Rob: I was waiting for her to- Michele: No, they’re in bad shape.
Mike: I can’t believe that just happened!
Michele: We have talked a lot about what to do with the buildings.
We’ve talked about a beauty salon, kind of a thrift store, and just open it up so people can come in and enjoy what they remember.
Michele: Well, Jason…
Mike: Oh yeah, we met earlier. Michele: Yeah.
Mike: Okay. Michele: Right, right. Yeah.
So, he’s interested. He even talked- Mike: So, he’s interested in doing a store in here?
Michele: A store, he’s even talking about butchering.
You know…
Mike: Really? Michele: Just getting that back.
Mike: It sounds like they have a plan and I love that it’s generational.
Main Street will never be what it was, but the history is the foundation of what it could be in the future.
A lot of these small towns are finding their feet again.
They’re embracing their roots and they’re telling their stories.
Michele: Let’s go in the back.
Michele: Alright, we got the barn right over here.
Rob: Yeah.
Michele: And Jason. You got those bolt cutters.
Jason: I’m back.
Rob: He’s back with the bolt cutters.
So, was this like the meat house?
Jason: This is just an old storage barn.
Rob: There you go.
Mike: Shopping carts. Rob: Holy [bleep].
Alright, here Mike.
Pepsi sign right off the bat.
There.
Mike: Might be one underneath it.
Michele: What in the world could these be? I mean, I was curious.
I was like, okay, what is in here?
Rob: There we go.
Up all the way. And I’ll take that end out.
Right there, I got it. I got it, right here.
Let me see.
[grunting] There.
Rob: It has original wax paper on them, like they were never even put out.
Mike: There’s another one.
Rob: Yeah, this one’s got a little rust on it right there.
The fact that they were stacked, that was the top one and that was the one that got most of the moisture on it.
Rob: It’s typical of any sign that you find that’s been in a barn or a building like this, the bottom edge was laying in some type of moisture.
Mike: That’s not gonna come back.
Rob: The first one had the most on it, but then the second one didn’t have that much.
Then the third one actually looked cleaner.
Mike: Are they dated?
Rob: It says 162, it’s out of St. Louis.
It’s not dated though. Self-framed- Mike: Yeah, it is. Right there.
Rob: ’66. Mike: ’66. Yeah.
Michele: The color on the Pepsi-Cola signs, it was unreal.
Especially on the two of them that were inside and had that paper over them.
Rob: So, in varying conditions right here, you got about $2000 in retail.
Michele: Okay. Rob: I’m saying 1400 bucks.
Mike: I was gonna say 1300. Rob: Yeah.
Well, I already knew – here’s how that works, Michele.
I knew that he was gonna say 1300.
I knew I better come in at 14 because you’re gonna say 1450.
Mike: No. Rob: Or you’re gonna say 1500.
Mike: No, that’s now how you deal, little brother.
If you would’ve said the 13, she would’ve hit you at 1450.
Rob: Right, so that’s why I’m already at 14.
Michele: 16.
Mike: Now she’s gonna say that. Rob: 16…
Mike: 1500 bucks.
Michele: 1550. Mike: 1520.
Michele: 1530. Rob: 15.
Mike: 1525. Rob: 15. 15!
Michele: 1530.
Mike: $1525.
Michele: No. 1530.
[laughs] Mike: Ah!
Alright, I’m tapping out. I’m tapping out.
Michele: Okay. Mike: Okay.
Mike: Sometimes, when you do something for so long, for decades, it really becomes a part of who you are.
Mike: Alright, here we go.
Mike: Now, imagine connecting that to your community.
Mike: You got the brooms? Michele: Of course!
Rob: You guys found the brooms? Mike: [laughs] Mike: Michele’s family continued to be there for the community even when so much of it was disappearing around them.
Physically disappearing, buildings gone, and businesses gone, her family has stuck it out.
Mike: Thank you so much. Michele: That’s very nice.
Mike: You’re awesome. Thank you.
Michele: Thank you. Mike: Had a great time.