American Pickers Once Found Antique Poison Bottles They Bundled Into A Deal
"You're right," says "American Pickers" host Mike Wolfe as he walks past a sign reading "General Store and Museum." "It is a general store and museum."
With that, another classic "American Pickers" adventure is well underway, offering up more America to see and more stuff to pick. This time around, Wolfe finds himself, as he often does, in a room full of rusty objects, collected and lovingly stacked on top of one another by an antique dealer named Jerry.
While hesitant, Jerry (being a man who sells antiques and all) understands the need to sell some things. And Mike? Well, he's plum giddy to buy some things. The pieces were in place. The only question? "What things will be bought? And while we're at it, what things will be sold?"
Viewers don't have long to wait to find out. Before you can say, "Let's go pick some America," Mike Wolfe clocks his quarry: a pair of bottles adorned with distinctive "poison" labels.
American Picking a parcel of poison
The way Mike Wolfe sees it on the Season 23 episode of "American Pickers," titled "The Wizard's Castle," old-timey bottles are very in with collectors, especially when they come complete with warnings about how eating whatever was inside would kill you.
"Back in the day," Wolfe explains, "we didn't have the convenience of really good lighting, and there was a lot of illiteracy, so poison labels had to be big and obvious with the skull and crossbones."
Up next is the haggling, with a textbook "American Pickers" back-and-forth ending in an absolute daisy of a bundle for Wolfe. The borderline unbelievable price of $1,050 brings the television host a pair of steel display cabinets constructed by Detroit's own J.F. Hartz Company, with the pair of used poison bottles thrown in to boot. The "American Pickers" store is well on its way to featuring macabre new stock.
The day isn't over yet, with Wolfe dickering for antique shoes, an antique shoe stand, small plaster sculptures, and more. It was a heck of a day to be an American and a heck of a day to pick.