American Pickers and Pawn Stars are both fake. Fun to watch but totaly scripted.
You don’t just walk into a pawn shop and not notice the cameras, light reflectors, sound equipment and drop your Nordon Bombsight on the counter. The natural reaction is to look at the camera and say “Am I on TV?”.
Knowing two people who have gone to the store - they say there is a rope line to even get in, you won’t see the Pawn Stars guys in the store unless they are filming, and when they are filming the store is shut down. A good portion of the store is taken up with Pawn Star souvenirs like Chumlee t-shirts - something you wont see on the TV camera angles. And museum currators don’t just show up at Pawn Shops to check if an item is real. They would never have the time to work at the museum. And many of the items so I’ve read are actually from the area museums used only as props for the show. They go back after the filming and phony sale. Fun show anyway
***American Pickers and Pawn Stars are both fake***
Also true for the original ‘reality’ show: Antique Roadshow. Shared a flight with an individual responsible for shipping the larger pieces to the show’s ‘locations’. All the items ‘appraised’ are pre-selected and researched for the ‘experts’. That’s not to say the items are not privately owned, but a lot of pre-show preparation goes into the final presentations.
So AR is also phony but fun and educational.
I bet you say wrestling is fake too.
... Knowing two people who have gone to the store - they say there is a rope line to even get in, you won’t see the Pawn Stars guys in the store unless they are filming, and when they are filming the store is shut down....
Not always true. We’ve visted the Pawn Stars store a number of times in the last couple of years. If there’s a line, we just come back later when there’s not one.
And Chumley actually works the store a good bit. A couple of years ago he sold my wife an opal ring she still wears.