The Best Find On American Pickers Season 9
One of the great things about binge-watching "American Pickers" is that you never know what's going to be in store for the guys. Sometimes, they stumble upon a ton of junk. Other times, they peruse through enough garages to find genuine treasure that lights up Mike Wolfe's face.
Even if an item has a bit of rust on it, Wolfe still manages to see the value in everything, and if he's confident he can make a buck off of it, he doesn't mind putting in an offer. Granted, that doesn't mean he's always successful. He can only offer so much, but for him, it's just a thrill to be in the same room as some of this stuff.
That was the case with one particular Season 9 episode of "American Pickers," titled "Grin and Bear It." Wolfe and Frank Fritz get some information on a guy who owns a 1954 VW Samba bus, of which less than 2,000 were made. It's enough to get Wolfe drooling.
Mike Wolfe makes an impressive offer on the VW bus
The bus is in pretty rough shape when Wolfe and Fritz take a look at it. There's no flooring, windows, or seats, but the frame is all there, and that's what Wolfe cares about the most. These buses have been known to fetch a pretty penny at auction, and in the episode, it mentions how a 1963 VW bus sold for over $217,000 back in 2011. One can only imagine what a restored '54 VW bus would bring in, and Wolfe naturally wants to get in on the action.
Wolfe calls a buddy of his who knows more about these vehicles to get more information on how much it would cost to restore the bus and what he could reasonably get out of it. When all is said and done, he offers the seller $20,000. It's not a bad payday for what amounts to a hunk of metal in his garage, but he declines.
Wolfe and Fritz could not make a deal on that day, but they never let that deter them. For a bus this rare, it was an honor just to be in the same room as it.