MIKE: Dani D, what's up?
DANIELLE: Hey, I'm glad I caught you guys.
I'm sending you to meet Mary, Sarah, and Shane.
DANIELLE: Sarah's father had a photography studio out in the
desert. So I've been talking to Shane, Sarah's fiancé.
He's the one who's been helping her clear everything out,
since her father died.
ROBBIE: Well, we're in the middle of the desert.
MIKE: I feel like we're in an episode of Breaking Bad.
DANIELLE: So you're close then.
MIKE & ROBBIE: [laughs]
DANIELLE: Yeah, this place is packed.
I mean, obviously there's vintage cameras,
but they also have like bicycles,
he has a Porsche up there, vintage audio equipment.
MIKE: He's got an old Porsche?
ROBBIE: He's got a Porsche?
MIKE & ROBBIE: Dang...
DANIELLE: Alright, you guys have fun with this one,
but make sure to stay hydrated.
MIKE: We'll let you know how it shakes out.
ROBBIE: out.
MIKE: If we survive.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Oh my gosh, you guys are so dramatic.
MIKE: Bye. ROBBIE: See ya.
♪ ♪ ♪
MIKE: Finally in civilization.
ROBBIE: This is it, right here.
MIKE: Right here.
ROBBIE: Right here.
MIKE: That's what I said, right here.
You got a flyer?
ROBBIE: Yeah.
[honks horn]
MIKE: Hey-hey...
MIKE & ROBBIE: You Shane?
SHANE: Yes sir.
MIKE: Man, I'll tell you what,
it's a journey to get here, brother.
SHANE: I know, what... I bet.
ROBBIE: Holy cow, I'm telling ya.
ROBBIE: This place is kind of like an oasis out here.
It's in the middle of the desert,
and it looks untouched for so many years.
SHANE: Why don't we introduce you to my fiancée
and my future mother-in-law?
MIKE: Okay cool.
ROBBIE: Alright. SHANE: Alright?
MIKE: Any air conditioning?
SHANE: There is... semi air conditioning.
Sarah, Mary, we got some guests.
MIKE: Helloooo.
SARAH: Hey, how's it going?
MARY: Hello.
ROBBIE: How're you doing?
MIKE: Looks like you guys got your hands full.
ROBBIE: full.
MIKE: Hi.
MARY: Hi, I'm Mary, nice to meet you.
ROBBIE: How're you doing, Mary.
MIKE: Hey, Sarah?
SARAH: Sarah, hi... Sarah.
MIKE: Hi, how are you.
MARY: Robbie.
ROBBI: Good to see ya, good to see ya.
MIKE: How long have you guys been at...
been at going through all this?
SHANE: We...
MARY: Well, we just started coming out in the last year,
goingthrough a few things he had plenty
of time to accumulate it over the last 30 years.
MARY: What did Jim collect?
What didn't he collect?
Even before we started dating,
he was always buying bicycles, fixing it up, selling them.
MARY: And then it went to Volkswagens,
for a short time he had his own Volkswagen repair shop.
And then he pursued his photography career.
MIKE: Well, it seems like he never left-lost his passion.
MARY & SARAH: No.
MIKE: Because as soon as I walk in here, I'm seeing like...
okay, this guy's got his priorities straight.
He's got the bad -to-the-bone stereo.
ROBBIE: Right.
MARY: Um-hm.
[group laughing]
MIKE: He's got the Ritchey mountain bike.
ROBBIE: mountain bike. Okay.
MIKE: I'm like going whoa,
and it's all in the living room, and I'm like...
ROBIE: Yeah.
SHANE: He's got a laser disc system too.
SARAH: [laughs]
MIKE: Does he really!
I'll tell you what, the guy had great taste in bikes.
This is...
MARY: Yeah.
MIKE: this is a Ritchey bicycle.
And Ritchey was one of the creators of the mountain bike.
MIKE: In the early 1970s, in the San Francisco Bay area,
guys like Joe Breeze and Tom Ritchey were imagining a bike
that could go anywhere, climb any hill, and descend anything.
They were pioneers and they were looking beyond the roads
and into the woods and mountains.
MIKE: Oh here's another Ritchey.
He had 2 Ritcheys.
The same one!
SARAH: Uh -huh. Yeah. [laughs]
MIKE: 2 of the same exact bike?
SHANE: There you go.
ROBBIE: He said, he...
MIKE: Okay, so one's got front suspension, one's rigid.
So this one right here, is an earlier model because
it's got a U brake on the bottom.
MIKE: I'm a bicycle collector, a rider,
and an enthusiast. I'm not just interested in stuff from the
turn-of-the-century, I'm interested in things that
were revolutionary to the industry.
MIKE: These are historic bikes.
I mean, they're epic because like,
Tom Ritchey was the-the founder,
the creator of mountain biking.
I mean, he's been inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.
MIKE: The mountain bike completely
revolutionized the industry.
To be honest with you, it helped save it.
A lot of people looked at road bikes like they were elitist,
they were intimidating, and not very comfortable.
So what the industry desperately needed
was something that appealed to the masses,
and that was the mountain bike.
MIKE: These were all handmade, so like my brother and I worked
at a bicycle shop, and I owned a bicycle shop
for a very long time.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: But for a customer to walk in,
in Iowa and order something like this...
ROBBIE: Like this, yeah.
MIKE: you never really ever saw that.
MIKE: Tom Ritchey anything was always extremely high quality,
whether it was a fork, a handlebar stem, a crank set.
Every bike that had his name on it, had his hands on it.
Even with all his success, the guy still kept it personal.
MIKE: And the geometry's very simple on them,
they're what they called TIG welded frames,
and he had his own tubing.
You can hear how... thin that is.
MARY: Um-hm.
MIKE: His bikes were really light for that time period.
I'm interested in this one for like... 550 bucks.
MARY: I think 6 would be good.
MIKE: Hmm...
MIKE: These bicycles may not be that old,
but they're extremely important.
MIKE: I'm going to do it.
I'm-I'm an old crazy old mountain bike guy too.
MARY: Okay. Alright.
MIKE: Okay?
[laughs]
MARY: Enjoy.
ROBBIE: Jim was one of those guys that,
reminds me a little bit of my brother and I.
He was into cars, and into mountain biking.
The little sanctuary that he built out here in the middle of
the desert is a perfect place for all this stuff.
SARAH: He really wanted to have a place for his, his artistry,
and he felt so creative in a space where
there wasn't many people.
MIKE: Most people would consider the desert a flyover zone,
or an area that you want to drive through as fast as you
can, because it is so desolate,
and the temperatures are incredibly high.
But the desert is so much more than that.
It's peaceful and it's quiet.
Which is exactly why this was his retreat.
MIKE: I've traveled on motorcycle across the desert
before, and man, there's certain points of the day
where, the light, the colors just change.
SARAH: Yeah. ROBBIE: Yeah.
MARY: It's magical.
MARY: Any time that we would go on a little trip,
it always took, you know, 10 extra hours every day...
SARAH: Yeah.
MARY: Because he had to pull over and take pictures,
wait until the sun was just right
and the lighting was coming in.
SARAH: Um-hm. One more roll, one more shot,
one more-look at-we gotta do-oh look,
you're missing it, Sarah, you just...
MARY & SARAH: going off...
[laughs]
SARAH: So.
SARAH: We're still going though,
I'm still opening drawers and cabinets and closets
and finding things I've never seen before.
MIKE: Lead, lead the way.
MARY: Okay.
MIKE: Alright, let me see here.
SARAH: Swap meets, garage sales, estate sales, curbs.
MIKE: 'Best of Bowie.'
SARAH: Anywhere that something was for sale,
he was buying something.
MIKE: Marantz. Stereophonic receiver.
SARAH: There is, you know, 12 more in the...
the shop.
MIKE: There's 12 more of these in the shop?
SARAH: Uh-huh.
SARAH: He gave me my own Marantz, in my...
room, as a child, you know like...
when I, like on my 12th birthday, he set it up,
and it's like, well our house is only, you know,
1,000 square feet.
MARY: [laughs]
SARAH: And we have, you know, 4 Marantzes hooked up.
ROBBIE: Wow.
MIKE: Oh wow.
SARAH: Yeah...
MIKE: Look at these... look at all the Marantz stuff!
MARY: [laughs]
MIKE: Oh he's got a bunch of them!
MIKE: Marantz is one of those companies that set the bar
when it came to high fidelity audio systems in the 1970s.
ROBBIE: Mike, look at this over here.
MIKE: [laughing] Oh my God... wow!
ROBBIE: These are all Marantz.
MIKE: This takes brand loyalty to the next level.
MIKE: Did you realize your man was such a Marantz man?
MARY: [laughs] I didn't know.
ROBBIE: Look at that.
MIKE: I feel like Robbie and I are back in Team Electronics in
1978, Duck Creek Plaza, Bettendorf, Iowa,
looking at all of the Marantz stuff that we couldn't afford.
ROBBIE: Here's a 4430, here's a 2226B.
ROBBIE: Mike and I are reliving our youth, basically.
Vintage stereo equipment, this is what we used to do.
Led Zeppelin live, RTR towers outside.
Our neighbors hated us!
MIKE: And here's a turntable that looks pretty cool.
Let's see... ugh... where can we put this?
ROBBIE: I love the...
gear mechanism, now put it right here.
MIKE: Ahh...
SARAH: Yamaha.
ROBBIE: What is that?
MIKE: Yeah, what is this?
ROBBIE: Yamaha?
SARAH: Yamaha PX3.
MARY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Oh it's a Yamaha. It's right here.
MIKE: I mean, all of this stuff, I mean,
to real-actually really use it,
you're going to want it gone through,
at least cleaned and looke at.
MARY: Um-hm.
SARAH: Right.
MIKE: You know what I mean.
And a lot of those guys, I mean, in Nashville,
those guys are like 80 bucks an hour, some of them are.
MIKE: I've always been passionate about hi-fi.
Speakers, turntables, amps, receivers.
MIKE: He must have bought every one he ever saw at a yard sale.
MIKE: Thank God for guys like Jim that had the vision to find
this stuff, and store it, and keep it for future generations.
MIKE: Alright... we'll line them up here.
MIKE: Jim never lost the passion.
He knew there was going to be a next revolution of vinyl,
and that is happening right now.
MIKE: Okay, so all of these turntables...
ugh don't do that!
ROBBIE: Oh.
MIKE: 'Cause of that plastic, you know.
ROBBIE: Oh yeah.
MIKE: When you scratch that plastic,
you're scratching that plastic.
Okay, so you've got a Denon, a Sony, Yamaha,
we've got a Marantz, and we've got a...
ROBBIE: Bang and Olufsen.
MIKE: Bang and Olufsen.
Does this got a stylus on it?
ROBBIE: I don't see it, it doesn't look like it.
MIKE: No, there's no stylus on that at all.
So, the stylus, like on that Bang and Olufsen...
that's-that's not cheap.
I mean, you want to get something nice,
you know what I mean?
And all of these are averaging about...
anywhere from 3 to 500, except for-that's like working,
except for this one.
This one's 5 to 7, the Marantz one's 5 to 7.
MIKE: It was a big deal to own Marantz back in the day,
and it's a bigger deal now.
The sound that a Marantz delivers is timeless.
MIKE: I'm coming at this from a standpoint of, you know,
having this stuff gone through, to sell it.
MARY: Uh-huh.
MIKE: You know, unless you're going to sell it to somebody,
and you don't go through it, and then you're-
you're not going to get the money out of it.
800.
MIKE: The way I'm figuring that is:
150, 150, 150, 150 - that's 6;7, 8.
SARAH: I know there are other turntables, you know,
I feel like that might have been the only Marantz
turntable my dad had.
SARAH: I think you can come up a little bit more,
because of this Marantz turntable.
MIKE: Alright.
Robbie, grab that receiver, grab that one receiver.
ROBBIE: Oh, ugh.
MIKE: Alright, so.
ROBBIE: This thing ain't light.
MIKE: Yeah, so...
ROBBIE: It's got a cracked case.
MIKE: Well, it just broke in half, didn't it?
ROBBIE: No it didn't. Where?
MIKE: The case is broken on that.
ROBBIE: Yeah, right here.
MIKE: It's got a big...
ROBBIE: Yep.
MIKE: big whambo -jambo on it.
ROBBIE: Right here.
MIKE: Alright, so...
800, you wanted to come up 900.
SARAH: Um-hm.
MIKE: And then an extra 300...
SARAH: Okay.
MIKE: Because all this...
ROBBIE: 1,200.
MIKE: this is going to have to go...
be gone through, totally gone through.
SARAH: Um-hm.
MIKE: All of it is.
ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah.
MIKE: But it's great stuff, you know.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
SARAH: 1,200?
MARY: I think that's fair.
SARAH: Yep.
MIKE: Alright.
MARY: Fair?
SARAH: It sounds good.
ROBBIE: Alright.
[group laughing]
ROBBIE: You can access more music today
than any time in history.
But you can never recreate the sound these stereos give you.
You put the needle on the record,
you sit down in your chair, and it's moving your body.
MIKE: Love it. I absolutely love it.
♪ ♪ ♪
SARAH: I know you guys asked about the Porsche.
ROBBIE: Oh yeah.
MARY: It's a 912, 1966.
MIKE: Look at that!
MARY: This car...
ROBBIE: Wow.
MARY: he bought from a, our neighbor friend.
ROBBIE: You remember him buying this?
MARY: Oh yes, yes, definitely.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: [laughs]
MARY: It was just his getting around town car,
nice little car to present himself in.
MIKE: Wow...
so when's the last time this ran, do you know?
MARY: '92 or so?
MARY: The Porsche was not a practical car for
getting around with a toddler.
So, he parked the car here, and used the van more,
the Volkswagen van.
MIKE: It looks extremely solid.
I mean, a lot of these cars, you know...
ROBBIE: It looks incredible.
MIKE: I mean, they look great from the top...
MARY: Uh-huh.
He was the third owner of it, I know that.
It was always a California car.
MIKE: Here we go, okay.
ROBBIE: Showing 81,000 on the miles.
MIKE: The 912 was the affordable version of
the 911 for the US market.
MIKE: I mean, overall it's just so freakin' solid.
Let's see the engine, Robbie.
MIKE: For these early years, the only major structural
differences were the location of the motor mounts...
MIKE: Engine's not stuck.
ROBBIE: Oh yeah. That's not stuck.
MIKE: And also, an accommodation for the
oil tank for the 911 engine.
MIKE: So the 912, this is a 4-cylinder.
The 911 was a 6-cylinder.
MARY: Um-hm.
MIKE: And 911 is basically, almost the same car,
except it's like twice the money.
MARY: Um-hm. ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: You know, in regards to the power and the price.
But the style of the car, the design of the car is basically,
like a 911.
MARY: Um-hm.
MIKE: Have you guys done any research on
this in regards to the value of it?
SARAH: We have had a couple of offers.
Um, and I know, you know, it's nice to have a car
that's never been, you know, repainted...
MIKE: Exactly.
SARAH: It's pretty much as original as it gets, so. Um...
MIKE: So your father always told you that
it was original paint?
SARAH: Yeah.
MIKE: At first glance, the car looks like it's original paint.
It's been in a climate -controlled building.
A car like this in this condition, is a time capsule.
MIKE: What kind of offers have you guys had?
SARAH: It's a large amount.
It's a large offer, yeah.
MIKE: Well I know, I mean... I just... there's...
SARAH: Like 25 grand.
MIKE: Yeah. SARAH: Yeah.
MIKE: If you Google these cars, or research these cars,
you'll see that they're anywhere
from 25 grand running...
SARAH: Um-hm.
MIKE: To... 60 grand, like clean and mile-low
mileage and all that stuff.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Do you have a number in mind for it?
If you passed at 25 grand?
SARAH: It was more...
ROBBIE: She didn't really pass at 25 grand... yeah.
SARAH: It yeah...
it was just more like, are we ready to-to get rid of it...
ROBBIE: To get, to get it out.
MARY: Right. SARAH: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Any car from the '50s and '60s, if you find a
car that's got original paint on it with low miles on it,
you have to try and buy it.
MIKE: Take a picture of that.
You got Rich at J-3's number?
ROBBIE: Yeah, I got his number.
ROBBIE: They're like unicorns out there.
ROBBIE: Going in, hold on there.
MIKE: Going in... going in.
ROBBIE: I got the door, I got the door.
MARY: Oh God... Oh...
ROBBIE: Got to get the legs out.
MIKE: I'm doing the splits.
[laughing]
ROBBIE: Yeah, you're doing the splits.
MARY: Oh my God...
MIKE: Argh, man!
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Ugh! Whoa!
ROBBIE: At least our knees still work that way.
[group laughing]
MIKE: Ah, it's so cool. Have you sat in this?
SARAH: I haven't.
MIKE: You might not want to sell it if you sit in it, man.
SARAH: [laughs]
ROBBIE: This car mechanically looks like it's sound.
MIKE: I want to see what the floor looks like on this thing.
ROBBIE: A guy can't afford a 911, but he can afford a 912.
MIKE: It's clean, it's super clean.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: The difference is 25 to $50,000.
MIKE: Did you send those pictures to J-3?
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: We got a guy that, all he does is Porsche.
MARY: Um-hm.
MIKE: Anything early air -cooled like this is his jam.
We always kind of chime in with him.
He's a pretty good, he's a pretty good dude.
[phone ringing]
RICH (ON PHONE): Mike?
ROBBIE: Hey Rich.
MIKE: Rich, what's up?
RICH (ON PHONE): Hey.
MIKE: We're here with the owners of the car.
The car to me looks like it's original paint.
And the floors are rock solid.
And they've had an offer at 25,000 and they turned it down-
or they didn't turn it down, they weren't ready.
RICH (ON PHONE): If, if the motor is non-stuck... good...
MIKE: It's not stuck.
ROBBIE: Its not stuck.
MIKE: It's not stuck, I turned it over.
RICH (ON PHONE): Right.
Let's assume that the block is good.
You're still going to, to take a car that's been sitting that
long, fuel system, brake system, carbs, everything.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
RICH (ON PHONE): So you know...
MIKE: So what is that around?
RICH (ON PHONE): You know, you could blow
10 grand, you know, real quick.
For a running, driving, patina car,
that's the retail number on that car.
ROBBIE: Right.
RICH (ON PHONE): I'm sure it's a great car, but... you know...
MIKE: It is.
RICH (ON PHONE): end user versus what, what y'all...
MIKE: The paint, the paint looks like it'd clean up
pretty decent, you know.
MIKE & ROBBIE: Yeah.
RICH (ON PHONE): Did you pull back the seals, you know,
look for any signs of overspray?
ROBBIE: Yeah, I already did-I did that, Rich.
MIKE: We didn't pull back the hood seal.
ROBBIE: Yeah, we did, I pulled it back in here.
RICH (ON PHONE): The fender seal in the front,
like where it goes up to the windshield cowl,
there's that small 7 to 8 inch seal that goes
between the cowl and...
ROBBIE: Right here.
RICH (ON PHONE): the- the fenders, yeah, that's...
ROBBIE: Yeah, but this is... this...
RICH (ON PHONE): No overspray, spotless...
ROBBIE: Right here?
SARAH: Oh... oh...
ROBBIE: Right here.
MIKE: That seal's painted white.
ROBBIE: Yeah, so is this. Right here.
MIKE: Okay.
ROBBIE: A little bit of white marks on the-on the seal,
on the window.
RICH (ON PHONE): Then it's been painted.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MARY & SARAH: Ohh...
RICH (ON PHONE): Alright, so it's not original paint...
ROBBIE: Yeah, right here, you can see it right here Mike.
SARAH: Ooh...
RICH (ON PHONE): That's, that's a big difference... that's why...
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay, so you're saying on the rubber seal
around the window...
MARY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Where's white here, there's white right there,
white right here.
SARAH: Yeah, I think taking a look for, I mean,
my dad was all about original.
So that's what I, I always heard.
MARY: Ooh...
RICH (ON PHONE): And it's-it's totally plausible for that to
have been painted multiple times, I mean...
ROBBIE: Oh yeah.
RICH (ON PHONE): You know, it's-it's normal.
But those are the things that are going to drive your price
to say it's a very, very big difference...
ROBBIE: Right.
RICH (ON PHONE): between original paint survivor...
ROBBIE: Yeah.
RICH (ON PHONE): and even something that's had
1 or 2 re -sprays.
SARAH: Um-hm.
RICH (ON PHONE): It-it all goes into, you know,
setting the price.
MIKE: Yeah, I gotcha.
SARAH: That was definitely a surprise when
the guys called their buddy.
What are you going to do though?
MARY: A little overspray.
ROBBIE: Alright.
MIKE: Alright, brother.
MIKE & ROBBIE: Thank you.
SARAH: Thank you.
RICH (ON PHONE): Alright, hey best of luck guys,
be safe out there.
ROBBIE: Alright, thanks.
MIKE: It's a little bit hard to break the news to
somebody that what they have...
isn't what they thought.
But on the other hand, it's good to let them know that
it's not, because now they can represent the car
the way it should be.
SARAH: We should call my cousin, tell him too.
He has helped us like, price things out,
and I don't know if he knows that it's been repainted either.
MARY: My nephew is interested in-in the Porsche,
because he remembers it as a kid.
And so he has some attachment to it.
MIKE: What did he say the number was on it?
SARAH: Like... 20 to 30-really like,
he-he's calling from Colorado.
MIKE: Yeah, same thing my guy said.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: I like the car a lot, I think it's a solid car.
MARY: Um-hm.
MIKE: I mean, I can physically see it where Rich can't.
And it does hurt it a lot that it's been repainted,
but what everybody wants right now it's the survivor car.
SARAH: Um-hm.
MIKE: You know, even more so than something restored,
you know.
MARY: Um-hm.
MIKE: They-they want to be able to enjoy it,
they want to be able to drive it.
I'd be, I'd be in it 20,000.
MARY: Um-hm.
MARY: $20,000 was not enough for the Porsche. Um...
SARAH: That's pretty much it.
SARAH: I think I'll have to wait, I think,
and call my cousin and see.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: I think there's been conversation about a family
member that wants the car.
And now with the price point that it's at,
I think that's where it's going to go.
♪ ♪ ♪
MIKE: Look at this, Robbie.
ROBBIE: Oh I saw that.
It's got the metal, metal, metal top on it, ain't it cool?
MIKE: Yeah.
[bell rings on toy]
ROBBIE: The fact that it's in the box is cool.
MIKE: This is a battery-operated bank.
He would have done this.
[bell rings on toy]
MIKE: When you put some money in the bank.
And... the battery tray...
MIKE: usually, there's batteries left in here and
it's rotted out, so this one's in really nice shape.
75 bucks.
SARAH: You do 80?
MIKE: I'm doing it, I'm doing it.
SARAH: Merry Christmas.
MIKE: Feliz Navidad. [laughs]
SARAH: [laughs]
ROBBIE: I found a... it looks like an old dirt bike.
MARY: Okay.
ROBBIE: Yamaha.
MARY: Yes.
ROBBIE: Yeah, plastic tanks on it.
So do you think this is one that you guys
would be interested in selling?
SARAH: I think so.
ROBBIE: There's actually an extra tank.
He must have bought an extra tank,
'cause he couldn't get enough hours,
'cause he wanted more gas, so.
MARY: [laughs] This is for your tank.
ROBBIE: He was all about, let me go ride for more hours.
MARY: Um-hm.
ROBBIE: You know, this is an Enduro dirt bike,
and I love these things.
They bring me back to a time in my youth where, you know what,
I was fearless.
ROBBIE: God...
MARY: Robbie, does it have a license plate on it?
Is it off-road, off road...?
ROBBIE: No, this is a... this is a complete off-road bike.
MARY: Okay.
ROBBIE: Over the years, these things have
become more and more desirable.
ROBBIE: Retail number on this bike's going to be like...
between 800 and 1,000.
1,200 bucks gets, you know, if it's running.
MARY: Um-hm.
MARY: Jim joined a motorcycle club in high school.
SARAH: I'll go ahead and come over and take a look.
MARY: He really loved it.
It was a way that he could get away from his mom and dad.
ROBBIE: This, this doesn't look like it's
been out of the shop in...
a long, long time.
SARAH: And he broke his leg, and he was in a cast up to his...
MARY: His whole senior year, yeah.
SARAH: He said, retail they'd go for 800 to 1,000.
ROBBIE: Yep. I'd want to be at like 600 on it.
SARAH: Come up any more?
MARY: Just a little?
ROBBIE: 6-and-a -quarter. That's it.
SARAH: Your call, Mom.
ROBBIE: It kicks through.
If it kicks through, I can make it run.
MARY: And you'll take it out of here?
It's giving me a little...
SARAH: 6-and- a-quarter.
ROBBIE: 6-and-a-quarter, and I get it out of here.
SARAH: Go for it.
MARY: Okay, Robbie. Enjoy.
ROBBIE: Alright, thank you.
MARY: Enjoy.
ROBBIE: Thank you, thank you.
ROBBIE: I'm not surprised to find this here.
ROBBIE: Ugh!
ROBBIE: This is where you want to
be riding these in California.
ROBBIE: Bam!
MARY: You guys might be interested in his container.
MIKE: Absolutely.
SARAH: I don't think we've ever been in here.
ROBBIE: There you go. Damn...
MIKE: Oh wow...
ROBBIE: Whoa! Let me get in here.
MIKE: Alright...
SARAH: Oh shh...
MIKE: Here, does this open up more?
MARY: Stuck...
SARAH: Um, it's...
ROBBIE: It won't open any further.
MIKE: Oh yeah...
ROBBIE: With the-with the chain on it...
SARAH: Oh...
MARY: Oh there it is.
MIKE: There it is.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
SARAH: That was in my dad's house,
that was their dining room table lamp.
MIKE: Yeah!
MARY: His childhood, yeah.
SARAH: Yeah.
MIKE: Look at that.
SARAH: Wow, I haven't seen that since I was 2.
I thought we got rid of that, like I thought that got left
outside in the rain, but here it is.
MIKE: Would you sell this?
MARY: I got to check with my cousin.
SARAH: [laughs]
MIKE: Really! Dang! Your cousin has great taste.
MIKE: People that don't understand the mind
of a collector look around a space like this
and they see clutter.
That's not what it's about.
MIKE: Look at all this base... more baseball cards.
ROBBIE: Man, look at... these...
MARY: Oh...
MIKE: Just because your ideas, your ambition, your creativity,
your mission, outweigh the space that you have,
doesn't mean that you need to stop.
MIKE: Hey, how about this mini bike?
Is your cousin interested in that?
SARAH: Let's take a look.
MIKE: The easy way to say that,
is sometimes a collector's eye...
MIKE: is just way bigger than their space.
ROBBIE: Alright...
SARAH: Cool.
ROBBIE: Look at that.
MARY: Oh wow.
MIKE: Yeah.
SARAH: That's awesome.
ROBBIE: A Zebra!
SARAH: Love it.
MIKE: Oh yeah.
This is a desert sled right here.
ROBBIE: When Mike and I were growing up as kids,
we had mini bikes, we had cruisers, we had go-karts.
That was the fun thing you did.
MIKE: What are you thinking, Robbie?
ROBBIE: There's a lot of guys that collect these.
ROBBIE: I remember the day I jumped 13 garbage cans,
I was on top of the world!
MIKE: $300.
MARY: Well, you did work really hard to get it out.
MIKE: Yeah.
MARY: 300.
MIKE: Thank you.
MIKE: All of these pieces and parts that are around this
property, whether they're inside or outside,
are moments that inspired him in one way or another.
ROBBIE: Hey, did you guys camp a lot?
MARY: Yeah. SARAH: Yes.
MIKE: Isn't that something that we all dream of?
Having a space that fuels our imagination.
ROBBIE: There's only like, maybe 30 or 40
of these back there.
ROBBIE: Early Coleman lanterns are highly
desirable and highly collectible.
The ones that have the rounder cylinders.
ROBBIE: Early cook stove, I like those.
Earlier ones always demand more.
SARAH: Um-hm.
ROBBIE: I'd do 100 on this one, 25 on that,
25 on the... cook stove.
And the 275 I'd do... 35 bucks.
SARAH: 185.
ROBBIE: Man, you're quick.
SARAH: Let's do... 200?
200.
I'm making the deal. [laughs]
ROBBIE: I'm shaking your hand.
MARY: Okay.
MIKE: Alright, I saw this car, this '71 when we came in.
ROBBIE: It's a Type 3 station wagon,
these are pretty desirable.
MIKE: Yeah, this interior in this thing's bad, man.
Peh...
ROBBIE: You know, there's a lot of money that would have to go
back into this thing, to get it back on the road.
But I understand why my brother wants it.
MIKE: I mean, with the interior work that needs to be done,
the floor work, you know, I'd be a player at like, like 3,000.
SARAH: Hmm... I think I got to save it for my cousin.
I think my cousin wants it.
MIKE: Ugh!
MARY: [laughs] Great little...
SARAH: Yeah...
MIKE: Your cousin has good taste.
ROBBIE: He's got good taste.
MIKE: Your cousin has good taste in cars, obviously.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Her father's passions created connections for Sarah.
Now that she's literally walking in his footsteps,
I think she realizes how much she's like her father,
and how hard it can be to let some of these things go.
MIKE: Here we go.
SARAH: Alright.
ROBBIE: Man, it has been a very interesting day,
to say the least.
MARY: [laughs]
ROBBIE: It has.
SHANE: Alright.
MARY: Thank you.
SARAH: He'd be happy for other people to have, you know,
part of his collection, even though you know,
he would had us, you know, triple our prices, but...
MARY: Yes, at least.
SARAH: Oh well.
MIKE: Thanks for putting up with us.
Your dad was a hell of a passionate man.
MIKE: The American Dream looks completely
different to each and every one of us.
Jim's dream - isolation, in the desert,
Porsche parked in the garage, cranking his tunes,
his custom handmade bicycle in the living room.
MIKE: I love that bicycle.
[group laughing]
MIKE: That sounds like heaven to me.
[honks horn]
MIKE: See you guys, stay cool!
MARY & SARAH: Bye!
SARAH: Thank you!
MARY: Alright!
♪ ♪ ♪
MIKE: Dani D, what's up?
DANIELLE: Hey, what's shaking this morning?
MIKE: We're on the way out here, what you got?
DANIELLE: So I'm sending you to see Wayne.
He's 84 years old, he's been collecting his entire life.
ROBBIE & MIKE: Really!
MIKE: Wow.
DANIELLE: Yeah, this guy's a veteran.
Almost 100 years of collecting.
ROBBIE: 100 years of collecting?
DANIELLE: I said almost 100 years.
ROBBIE: Oh.
MIKE: That's going to be me and Robbie, man.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
DANIELLE: Really, if you break it down between the 2 of you,
you have 100 years of collecting.
MIKE: What kind of stuff is he into?
What is he-what did he specialize in?
DANIELLE: I mean, he loves coin-op,
he's got tons of coin-op.
MIKE: So he's probably been to Chicago then.
DANIELLE: Oh yeah, and by the way,
he told me to get that 50 bucks you owe him too.
ROBBIE: Me?
MIKE: [laughs]
ROBBIE: Or him?
MIKE: Alright, sounds good.
Send us the coordinates, we'll hit it.
ROBBIE: See ya, Dani.
MIKE: Your door is open.
ROBBIE: This one?
MIKE: Yeah, you ding-dong idjit. There you go.
MIKE: Right here? Where?
ROBBIE: Uh...
MIKE: Okay.
ROBBIE: Right here?
MIKE: Well he's right there.
ROBBIE: Look right here, says right here.
MIKE: I know, I see it.
ROBBIE: Peaches.
MIKE: I know. I mean, this is so cool to live back here
and with all of these trees.
ROBBIE: You got to turn right here.
Wow, looks like he's got an old village.
MIKE: Oh yeah. Oh he's got...
yeah, yeah.
Robbie: [laughs]
MIKE: Exactly.
[honks horn]
MIKE: Oh yeah. I like your little town here.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: That's kind of cool.
MIKE: What's going on?
It's good to see ya, I'm Mike.
ROBBIE: How're you doing?
WAYNE: Good.
ROBBIE: Robbie. You talked to Dani on the phone?
WAYNE: Yes I did.
ROBBIE: Alright.
MIKE: So... how many years at Chicago Coin-Op?
WAYNE: 25.
ROBBIE: Back when it was rockin' and rollin'.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: He was in the '60s, '70s, '80s,
when Chicago was booming.
All these European guys were coming in filling up container
loads of this stuff, and shipping it back overseas.
MIKE: Were you setting up there,
or were you just going to buy?
WAYNE: I set up there.
When you walked in, I had the first booth.
MIKE: You were inside.
WAYNE: Inside.
MIKE: Oh you were high buck.
WAYNE: I was one of those lucky persons,
I never hated to go to work in the morning,
'cause I enjoyed what I do.
MIKE: What about any of these signs on the
side of the building?
ROBBIE: They're all sun faded, California...
MIKE: This thing's still, you still roll in this?
WAYNE: Oh yeah.
MIKE: Are ya?
WAYNE: But the good ones I had hanging out there,
all got stolen.
ROBBIE: Oh really.
WAYNE: That's why...
ROBBIE: Really?
WAYNE: hang drunk out there.
MIKE: Man, look at this, Robbie.
ROBBIE: Oh wow. That's big, it's a bruiser.
MIKE: Look at the size of that, Robbie.
WAYNE: Jesus Saves, large neon, with the crosses on each side,
and it says in neon 'Jesus Saves'.
MIKE: Where did this come off of,
do you know any history of it?
WAYNE: This, this come... yeah.
My wife's dad put this on their church in Kingsburg.
WAYNE: My wife's parents were the ministers.
My father-in-law bought it used in Los Angeles in '47.
WAYNE: It was all lit up down there.
WAYNE: My wife and I got married in that church,
that was 1956.
WAYNE: When I took it down off the building,
somebody had broke some of these...
I got them...
ROBBIE: Oh the letters out of there...
MIKE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WAYNE: And the crosses, I think are good.
MIKE: There's a tremendous amount of story here.
Wayne's history with the sign, they know where it came from
initially - Los Angeles, California, in '47.
But the biggest story, is within the words itself.
ROBBIE: Here, I'll tilt it out, Mike.
MIKE: Yeah, tilt it out.
MIKE: The restoration process of this sign...
ROBBIE: And...
MIKE: And it's worse.
MIKE: would entail a lot more than just putting
the neon on it.
ROBBIE: Needs some work.
MIKE: Oh I know it does.
MIKE: You want the lettering to be seen from somewhat
of a distance, because this is such a big sign,
it's going to be up and away from you.
And you want to be able to see more than just the neon.
MIKE: There's no pane on the back of this either,
on the crosses.
MIKE: It's going to need to be painted in a way that shows
its age, but doesn't take it to the next level
where it looks restored.
MIKE: 2,800.
WAYNE: That's-that's fair.
MIKE: Alright, man, I'm doing it.
MIKE: Imagine this sign on top of the church,
double -sided, neon, how bright that would be.
MIKE: Woo!
ROBBIE: It was like a deep grey-ish
blue or something white...
MIKE: Yeah. Awesome.
MIKE: I mean, it would be a beacon to the community.
MIKE: Alright.
ROBBIE: Alright, what else are we looking at?
WAYNE: Well, got a little trunk.
ROBBIE: Man, you got some cars.
MIKE: Yeah.
Nice T-Bird. What's up with the T-Bird?
I got to ask on that.
WAYNE: I just haven't figured out a number on it yet.
MIKE: It's a California car.
I'm sure if you finally put a number on it,
it's probably going to stay in California.
MIKE: This is cool, man.
[engine starts]
MIKE: No matter how old you are...
MIKE: It sounds mean.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: you always have that need for speed.
MIKE: Oh a Cushman.
ROBBIE: Cushman.
MIKE: You rode a Cushman?
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: Nice little step through.
ROBBIE: Turtle back.
WAYNE: That's a '48.
MIKE: So what's going on with this ride here, man?
This is nice.
WAYNE: That one was restored in '59...
MIKE: So in 1959, where did you scrape up the cash?
WAYNE: We had a fruit stand up on Highway 41
right at the Bass Lake turn-off.
MIKE: You and your family did?
WAYNE: Me and my wife.
MIKE: Okay.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
WAYNE: And I sold antiques there too.
MIKE: So you had a fruit stand and antique stand.
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: I've traveled a lot of years, and a lot of miles,
and I've never seen a fruit stand antique shop.
MIKE: That's awesome, because you have a lot of
travelers coming through.
ROBBIE: Oh yeah.
WAYNE: Going to Yosemite.
MIKE: That, comes from the mind of a young entrepreneur
that sees opportunity.
MIKE: What kind of things were you selling then?
WAYNE: I sold, back then I would sell a lot of Edison
cylinder phonographs and music boxes.
MIKE: Really?
So you were out buying antiques, getting the fruit,
coming back, and then, and you'd setting up the stand.
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: Imagine going to a bank now and saying,
'I want to open a fruit stand /Victrola antique shop.'
[chuckles]
WAYNE: And I had a good business in the Bay Area.
MIKE: An antique shop?
WAYNE: Antiques.
From Tom Freddy in Iowa,
I bought his music box phonograph collection.
MIKE: Where-what- where-what part of Iowa?
WAYNE: Manly.
MIKE: And how many pieces was it?
WAYNE: 700.
MIKE: Really!
ROBBIE: 700 pieces.
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: And what- and what...
what type of collection was it?
WAYNE: It was all Edison phonographs.
ROBBIE: This guy took the risk.
I mean, he was buying up 700 pieces in the 1960s.
He's got a family at home, he's got to answer to his wife.
'Hey honey, I just went out and spent 7,500 bucks.'
I know what my wife would have said.
WAYNE: Anyway, a guy walked in my store in the '60s from
Japan, and he wanted to start buying phonographs.
And for about 15 years, I sold him a lot.
WAYNE: My biggest customer lived in Osaka, Japan.
And he owned a world famous tea house there.
WAYNE: You know, he would pay double what I could get here.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Oh yeah.
ROBBIE: Well... yeah.
WAYNE: And I would take everything to Nippon Express
in San Francisco.
MIKE: Yep.
WAYNE: And he'd air -freight everything.
MIKE: Guys that have been in the business
for as long as Wayne has, have the best stories.
You know, it's either the one that got away,
the big deal that went south, or the big deal that
changed their life and their business.
MIKE: Alright...
ROBBIE: What do you got?
MIKE: I think it's a Nativity scene.
ROBBIE: This guy was self -made, off of a gut feeling.
Not too many people can do what he did in his lifetime.
ROBBIE: I'll put this thing down here.
MIKE: I got some other stuff I want to hand ya.
Look at that. Alright...
ROBBIE: I got it.
MIKE: I got this seat...
ROBBIE: I got it.
MIKE: When I first started in this business,
I could go out and fill my truck up for 50 bucks.
ROBBIE: Got anything else?
MIKE: Ready?
ROBBIE: Yep.
MIKE: And a lot of the things that I was buying out
of those Iowa barns were things that needed to
be repurposed, like these Victrola horns.
MIKE: People are actually using these for lampshades.
Have you seen that?
WAYNE: No.
MIKE: Where they're hanging from the ceiling like this...
WAYNE: Yeah?
MIKE: they got an Edison bulb hanging down.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
WAYNE: Okay.
MIKE: So we got these 2 horns, you got scary Santa...
ROBBIE: And...
MIKE: the Nativity scene, and that flag.
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: And the other side of this deal
that's going to sell really
well, is the unusual and bizarre,
like these deconstructed Santa Clauses.
MIKE: What are you thinking?
WAYNE: To me, I think this is junk.
MIKE: [laughs]
WAYNE: So just give me a bid on all of it.
MIKE: So Wayne is like, I can't believe these
guys even want this stuff.
And I'm thinking, I can't get enough.
MIKE: 200 bucks.
WAYNE: Fine.
MIKE: [chuckles] Alright.
MIKE: This is the beauty of this business.
One guy sees junk, and the other guy sees potential.
♪ ♪ ♪
MIKE: Can we walk around the front?
I want to see the façade of this building that you did.
WAYNE: Sure.
MIKE: Oh you got more signs here too.
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: What about the Golden Glow beer?
That's kind of cool.
MIKE: Golden Glow Beer is from one of our neighboring states -
Wisconsin. Specifically, Monroe, Wisconsin.
MIKE: It's the afterglow. Gold Glow beer.
MIKE: It's so cool to see this hometown honey all
the way out here on the West Coast.
MIKE: It's a rare sign.
Have you ever seen it?
ROBBIE: I've never seen that.
MIKE: I've never seen that sign either.
300 bucks?
WAYNE: How about 350?
MIKE: I mean, I think I can put something on there
to bring the colors out in it a little bit.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: So I'm going to do that.
WAYNE: Okay.
MIKE: Alright man, thank you.
WAYNE: Thank you.
ROBBIE: I got to ask, because this was the place,
that's where I started at.
A&W root beer.
My mom said I had to go get a job...
MIKE: [chuckles]
ROBBIE: that's where it was.
ROBBIE: The A&W sign brings me back to my youth.
I'm basically 14 years old, I'm riding my bicycle, where?
To work, at A&W root beer.
ROBBIE: And this is back in the day
when they had the roller
skating ladies still, that went out and served you on the tray.
It was an old A&W that was downtown Bettendorf, Iowa.
MIKE: I love that you bought that, man.
ROBBIE: It's awesome.
MIKE: That you saw- 'cause a lot of people,
they would just let that thing get scrapped, you know.
WAYNE: I love A&W root beer.
MIKE: You and me both.
ROBBIE: Oh you and me both.
MIKE: Yeah.
You're making me want a float right now.
ROBBIE: Right now.
WAYNE: Well, I've got some in the house.
MIKE: Do ya?
[group laughing]
ROBBIE: Uhh... 500 bucks.
WAYNE: Uh, how about 5-and-a-quarter?
MIKE: Is the bottom rotted?
ROBBIE: A little bit.
It's been sitting down there, but...
MIKE: It's a great piece, man.
ROBBIE: It's a great piece.
MIKE: Oh my gosh...
ROBBIE: Yeah. 5 -and-a-quarter.
MIKE: Alright, he'll do it, 5-and-a-quarter.
ROBBIE: Alright. Thanks, man.
MIKE: Alright. Oh my gosh!
So this is your true passion.
WAYNE: Yep. Phonographs and music boxes.
MIKE: Wow.
ROBBIE: This is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
MIKE: Yeah.
[laughs]
ROBBIE: Holy cow.
MIKE: Obviously Wayne is a guy that likes his cars fast;
he likes to slow down a little bit on the dance floor.
MIKE: What's a rare one in here?
WAYNE: This one.
That phonograph will sell today,
in today's market for about 6,500.
MIKE: Okay. Does it work?
WAYNE: Oh yeah.
WAYNE: I learned all about the inventors when
I was in grade school.
Thomas Edison and all the inventors,
and it amazed me that he could make a phonograph,
make it play, without any electricity.
[cranking motor]
[scratchy music starts playing]
♪ Now Henry Jones and a pretty little queen... ♪
MIKE: Awesome...
♪ Took a ride one day in his big limousine ♪
♪ The car kicked up and the engine wouldn't crank ♪
♪ There wasn't any gas in the gasoline tank ♪
MIKE: [laughs]
♪ Just about that time along came Nord ♪
♪ And he rambled right along in his little old Ford, ♪
♪ his little old Ford ♪
MIKE: Oh that's a great song.
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: Wayne's knowledge of phonographs did not
happen overnight.
WAYNE: I have one of those records that's very valuable
with Edison's voice on it.
MIKE: Wow...
MIKE: It was earned the hard way,
and it's obviously something that he still enjoys.
MIKE: What's the value of something like this?
Since it's got wood on it.
WAYNE: Today, about 5,500 to 6,000.
MIKE: What about the one next to it here,
this... this brass one.
WAYNE: Now that, that's a cheap one.
MIKE: Yeah?
WAYNE: On the market, bring about 200.
MIKE: What's it?
ROBBIE: Really, that's it?
WAYNE: That's it.
MIKE: And this, does this work?
WAYNE: Oh yeah.
MIKE: 200 bucks?
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: That's what they bring?
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: Alright, well I'm-I'm taking it, man.
WAYNE: Okay.
MIKE: Because the thing is, see I'm-I'm...
I'm buying these for people that just want
to use it for décor.
WAYNE: Sure.
MIKE: The people that are collecting these aren't
doing it for the sound quality.
They're doing it for nostalgia, and the fascination with one
of the most prolific American inventors ever,
and his contribution to the American Dream.
ROBBIE: I got a question for ya.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Is that N -O-S in the crate?
WAYNE: No.
ROBBIE: That Mike has his hands...
WAYNE: it's not.
ROBBIE: Okay.
MIKE: No, it's not N-O-S to me.
WAYNE: No.
MIKE: You see the horn is... not N -O -S.
WAYNE: That, that's-that was an expensive horn
when it was in good shape, because...
MIKE: Because the flowers.
WAYNE: They never come out with flowers.
They called these people tramp arts...
MIKE: Uh-huh.
WAYNE: That used to go to the music stores and paint those in.
MIKE: Really!
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: People would make a living doing that?
They'd go to a music store and they'd go paint
as many horns as they could?
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: Wow.
I never heard that before, that's awesome.
WAYNE: Yep.
MIKE: What's that crate worth?
WAYNE: I figure any real collector...
MIKE: Yeah.
WAYNE: would pay 250 for that crate.
I've had thousands of horns, but that's the only one I've
ever seen, that they shipped them in.
ROBBIE: What are you thinking you got to have out of it?
WAYNE: 400.
ROBBIE: I'm not a phonograph guy,
but I love stuff that's in the original crate.
It tells a story.
ROBBIE: Yeah... my big brother always told me,
you buy something you've never seen before...
WAYNE: Okay.
ROBBIE: that's odd.
MIKE: Wow.
WAYNE: Thank you.
MIKE: Listening to me?
ROBBIE: I'm listening to you, thank you.
MIKE: I love that.
I love this about you.
Look at all this stuff.
WAYNE: I bought a collection of these...
SARAH: Yeah?
WAYNE: all different, an old man handmade those...
MIKE: Uh-huh.
WAYNE: Way back in the '30s.
WAYNE: What he did was go to some tractor museum,
and take pictures of a lot of different tractors and trucks,
and then he would come home and make them by hand.
WAYNE: I got a couple more left on...
top of the...
ROBBIE: Oh yeah, I see them up there.
MIKE: Wow, look at that one with the tract on the back, Robbie.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: That's crazy.
MIKE: Here, let me pull it down here, let me see.
WAYNE: What attracted me to those was the time that
went into them, and the detail they put.
They were just made to a tee just like the original was.
MIKE: What are you thinking on this?
WAYNE: Oh...
MIKE: What were you-what were you getting for the other ones?
WAYNE: About 3-350.
MIKE: I would do 300 on this.
WAYNE: You can have it.
MIKE: If you-if you would do that.
WAYNE: You can have it.
MIKE: I mean, it's obviously not a
salesman's sample or anything.
WAYNE: No.
MIKE: This is one man's...
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: you know, work.
As-as basically, as an artist.
MIKE: This is a model, but it's not a kit.
Think about the degree of passion and dedication it would
take to make something like this, especially...
from a photograph.
MIKE: You know, you look at it as a piece of art.
ROBBIE: So cool.
MIKE: Yeah.
MIKE: It's kind of where industrial art
and model making collide.
MIKE: Alright.
And then you got that one up there,
did you see that one, Robbie?
ROBBIE: Oh it's a Ford, it says too.
How many of these things you got left?
WAYNE: Just 3.
ROBBIE: There are 3.
MIKE: How many were there?
WAYNE: There was at least 120.
MIKE: Really!
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: That goes back to Wayne's character.
Wayne saw value in this, and he bought the entire collection.
ROBBIE: It's so cool. 300?
I'm, I'm taking it.
WAYNE: Okay.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: You know, over time, he sold those
pieces off and made money.
This is what's left.
♪ ♪ ♪
MIKE: What are these?
WAYNE: Paul Stanley, hand-painted drawings.
MIKE: If you're an advertising collector,
you know whole Paul Stanley is.
MIKE: Very cool.
WAYNE: Paul Stanley was a man that lived in
San Francisco in the early '50s.
He made advertisements that were all mechanical,
some 6, 7 feet tall.
MIKE: So it says, 'chimp revolves around perimeter of
can at varying rates of speed, gains momentum
to high speed spin, then slows down and repeats.'
WAYNE: The Paul Stanley collection I bought was so huge,
and in with it, I got artwork for every item they made.
MIKE: So this is the original piece of artwork that they
drew before they actually made the piece.
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: Paul Stanley basically specialized
in bringing brands to life.
His displays were epic, and something that
you would never forget.
That was the point.
He was an artist, he was a visionary,
and he set the bar when it came to advertising.
MIKE: So how large was this original piece?
WAYNE: Uh, stand about that high.
ROBBIE: These gigantic motion pieces that he was building,
they went to the wayside when cardboard came out.
It was easier to store, easier to ship.
ROBBIE: I love that.
MIKE: That's all hand-drawn.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
WAYNE: That's all hand-done.
I guarantee that.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Yeah, so it says Paul- 'Paul Stanley and Company,
San Francisco.' Alright, so there's 2 of them, and then...
WAYNE: I have...
MIKE: the other one.
ROBBIE: We'll have to climb up there and get it.
MIKE: We'll have to climb up and get.
WAYNE: Paul Stanley was a pretty big name even in other states.
My son and I made 50 trips to San Jose in ur truck to
haul this collection back to Kingsburg.
I sold about 600 pieces, most of them at the Chicago show.
MIKE: Here Robbie, take this one.
WAYNE: Probably the reason is because people could
never get one anywhere else.
MIKE: Alright, what is that one say, Robbie?
ROBBIE: 'Circular plexiglas... il-illuminated
base with transparency polished aluminum molding
top and bottom. Figure rotates... 360...'
MIKE: Okay, so this is cool because it's actually talking
about the type of materials they were
making it from as well.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: It says that, total height of this
piece was 60 inches.
MIKE: Wow!
ROBBIE: I get intrigued any time that I can find anything
that has to do with conceptional art.
You're getting closer to the seed of what
the artist idea is in his head.
And it's on paper now.
And this is the only one he made.
MIKE: 300 apiece?
WAYNE: What do you offer for the 3?
MIKE: So 900 bucks.
WAYNE: That's fine.
ROBBIE: That'd work?
MIKE: You want to do that?
300 apiece?
WAYNE: Yeah. ROBBIE: Alright.
MIKE: Okay, brother, thank you.
ROBBIE: Awesome.
Thank you.
WAYNE: I can show you what one of those animals
looked like. I think I got one some, let me grab one.
MIKE: Really! Where?
ROBBIE: You're talking about the bear?
WAYNE: Yeah.
WAYNE: I still had a few pieces of Paul Stanley's stuff.
A lot of it was broken, you know,
I never put it back together.
ROBBIE: Oh yeah, here, Mike.
Here we go.
MIKE: Let me see.
ROBBIE: See.
MIKE: Oh yeah, that is the Hamm's bear.
Do you have a lot of pieces from this company...
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Okay.
MIKE: that are broken or chipped or whatever?
WAYNE: I think so.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: You do.
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: Can we see that stuff?
WAYNE: Yeh.
MIKE: Which way do we go?
WAYNE: It's out in back.
WAYNE: Got to go around to the other side.
MIKE & ROBBIE: Okay.
MIKE: So man, you got a whole 'nother building's stuff.
WAYE: Here's some of the molds.
MIKE: So you bought the whole company.
These are the molds.
WAYNE: Yep.
MIKE: Wayne came across the honey hole, man.
MIKE: Wow, a rabbit.
WAYNE: We had a big banquet room that
was 4,000 square feet.
MIKE: More rabbit.
WAYNE: And we filled that up, from the floor to
the ceiling with boxes of those.
MIKE: Here's a whole monkey in here.
ROBBIE: Here, here.
MIKE: There's his legs.
ROBBIE: There.
MIKE: Right here.
So if we could find his head, that'd be really cool.
MIKE: Initially when we walked into this building,
I'm thinking any little piece and part that we can find from
the archives of this company is going to be epic.
MIKE: There, there's another monkey in there.
MIKE: But when we started pulling...
MIKE: Barrel of monkey.
MIKE: some rubber torsos of monkeys, hands,
and mechanical legs out of barrels, I was like...
I can see why this stuff's still here.
WAYNE: I sold the heads.
ROBBIE: Yeah?
MIKE: You sold just the heads.
ROBBIE: It must have been that cool looking.
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: Now he did mention that there was a guy that
came by, that bought all of the heads.
That guy... he knew what he was doing.
WAYNE: I'm looking for... for these, that say Hamms.
ROBBIE: Oh there's, there's the-there's the plates, Mike.
That said Hamms.
MIKE: Oh okay. Here, here...
ROBBIE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: I think my brother and I did a pretty good
job of actually getting into what was there.
MIKE: All we need is one 'H'.
I can't believe there's not an 'H' in there.
Alright.
You could put these on a board.
ROBBIE: You could put it on a board.
MIKE: And then you could put it, a letter in front of them.
WAYNE: Right.
MIKE: You know, but they're never going to spell Hamm's,
I don't know, 200 bucks.
WAYNE: Oh that's plenty, thank you.
MIKE: Alright, we'll do 200 bucks.
ROBBIE: Alright, killer.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Thanks.
MIKE: And then, what about that rubber,
that rubber monkey piece?
I love that.
WAYNE: I'll throw that in.
MIKE: You're throwing the monkey piece...
throwing the monkey torso in?
ROBBIE: Throwing the monkey in...
alright.
MIKE: So 200 with the monkey torso.
ROBBIE: Torso.
WAYNE: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MIKE: Alright, buddy!
ROBBIE: Awesome.
MIKE: Thank you.
ROBBIE: You know, Wayne's knowledge
of buying up larger collections
and how he made his money, is unbelievable.
ROBBIE: Man Wayne, I'm really happy with that thing.
MIKE: [chuckles]
MIKE: Everybody's got a story of how they got into the business,
and why they got into the business.
ROBBIE: Stand it up?
MIKE: Alright.
MIKE: But every once in a while, you get a story that
makes you wish things were the way they used to be.
MIKE: Wayne has been in this business for so long,
that he was able to buy things and do things that are almost
impossible to do in today's market.
MIKE: Thanks for being a mentor today.
WAYNE: Yeah.
MIKE: I mean that.
WAYNE: Okay.
WAYNE: They're a lot like I was.
MIKE: Alright, buddy.
WAYNE: Okay.
WAYNE: I learned a long time ago,
if you want to start a business and you work hard enough,
you can make it.
[honks horn]
MIKE: See ya down the road, Wayne!
WAYNE: See you later.