Signs, bikes, signs, bikes, signs, bikes, signs, bikes, signs, bikes....
Don't get me wrong, I watch this show. I generally enjoy it. But one huge flaw in the show (I have watched about 80 episodes so far) is the incredibly limited interests and knowledge that Frank and Mike actually have, in vintage items.
Both are obsessed with bikes and signs. And maybe oil cans. Every single episode, they are dragging some rusted bike or sign related item out, and fawning over it - when they could be making money on a lot of other things. It gets incredibly boring.
Obviously bikes, bicycles and signs make money. And obviously, these are their passion areas. But they are supposed to be pickers of *anything* valuable. So I find it hilarious when they walk into some huge garage, with a huge collection of some specialist collectible (e.g. toy cars, or tools, or something), and they'll wander around cluelessly and then spot ONE pathetic bike related item or ONE who-cares tin sign or branded clock up on the wall, and buy that, effectively side-stepping the entire collection. Because they really know nothing outside of a limited range of interests they have.
They do pick out "weird" items that they can sell for kitsch value - stuff they have never seen. But that's an easy criteria too: if it looks weird and we've never seen it before, buy it. It doesn't require any knowledge.
Meanwhile, they seem pretty clueless with regard to whole swathes of other types of collectibles.
I also find it hilarious when they dismiss things that are "too modern".
They barely even touch the 1970s, let alone things from the 1980s, or 1990s. Yet the early tin toy stuff they do buy is often $20, with a sell price of about $40. Wtf? If that tiny margin is all that is required for picking, there's loads of other stuff they could be picking and flipping for those kinds numbers. You can sometimes see great things in the background of the camera shots - including more modern things, which they walk past because they are pretty clueless about them.
As proof of what I say: in one episode I could see them walk past a bunch of vintage R/C stuff from the 1980s. Some of it was rare - if they could have haggled down (the seller was a lady who was clueless about any of it, because her husband had passed away), they would have easily doubled their money on it. But Frank talked about the garage being "a lot of modern stuff". So it was back to buying worn tin signs for who-cares brands, and other stuff within their limited range of knowledge.
Bikes and signs.
Think of some of the 80s/90s items that are worth a lot today. If they went into a garage and found NIP vintage Star Wars items, or NIP vintage Nintendo games, they would probably walk right past them, clueless. Yet some of these are worth thousands. Some are tens of thousands. Some have potential margins that make old motorcycle parts look like a joke.
I really expected their general knowledge of vintage goods and values, in this eBay age, to be way more up to date and more broad. Instead, it seems to be as ancient and rusty as most of the stuff they pick.