In the episodes I have seen, it’s only the principle players bidding. The ones driving up the prices are Hester, Jarrod the doofus (Daryl, god, he’s annoying). They are trying to ‘drop’ the locker on one of the others or get them spend all their money. I will see an ‘occasional’ bid from an outsider.
The outside bidders are usually involved in the $0-3/400 range and then drop out while Jarrod, Dave and Darryl whip thier dicks out at each other.
Probably because the players are not afraid anymore of being called out on appraising a fold-up chair for $150
My local paper ran a story a few months back on storage auctions, and yes, the popularity of the show has caused the price of units to skyrocket, and auctions that may once have attracted a handful of people, if that, are now attracting dozens. Some of the veterans are pissed about it.
The weird thing is that your average person is totally unequipped to make a profit from a storage locker. Most of the profit is in reselling what is essentially tag sale leavings. You may get the occasional case where the owner of a locker puts a lot of really valuable stuff in there and then gets hit by a falling Russian satellite, but most of the time, lockers are abandoned because they’re full of the kind of crap that’s not worth making a second trip for after you move. So unless you have a secondhand store or run a table at the local swap meet, you’re really bidding on a golden opportunity to haul a locker full of someone else’s junk to the dump.
I agree. On the show, generally the real money is only realized once they get the interesting stuff in front of an expert appraiser. And the real trick is knowing the difference between a worthless knickknack and something that might possibly be a real antique or collectible.
Also, it really helps to have a Rolodex with names of experts in all sorts of stuff.
According to the legal documents, Hester was making:
$25k per episode
$124k of yearly expenses
a signing bonus (which I didn’t find the amount for, assume $50k)
… and he was able to buy a locker with $90k of old newspapers for $750.
And now he’s suing the show claiming “this isn’t fair!”
WHAT A MAROON!
My sister and her ex used to own and operate several storage locker locations. And this was, indeed, her experience. Just about all of the stuff that was in abandoned lockers had to be dumped. Every now and then, they’d find something that was usable (a set of glassware, some furniture) but nothing that was valuable. She said that most of the abandoned lockers were full of things that the thrift shops would reject.
Hester is suing the show? Or is that more drama cooked up to keep us watching?
This reminded me of something. I have some stuff in a storage locker now, and there was a spot on the application form to list the names of three people who can access my locker in case I get hit by a falling satellite and am lying in intensive care unable to speak. Or whatever other emergency might befall me. They won’t go after them and hound them for money, but if I miss a certain number of payments and they can’t find me, before auctioning off my stuff, they will contact the people I listed and let them know I have stuff in storage and give them the option of keeping up payments, or getting the stuff out of there. Of course, my contacts have the option of saying, “Screw that, sell the bitch’s stuff!”
The real money is realized when somebody actually pays out the dough the appraiser says the item is worth. And it’s pretty rare to see the appraiser offer to buy the stuff.
The auction winner can pile up imaginary money saying that item X is worth $200, Y is $450 and so on, but those are in many cases fantasy dollars.
Curiously, I don’t really care if it is real or not. It’s entertaining and also can be educational.
The part I really don’t get is: what is the meat of Hester’s lawsuit? How can he be claiming to have been injured in some way by the ‘fraud’? Is this a breach of contract suit, claiming an unfair termination, what?
I’d be pleased if he weren’t on the show any more, I do watch it occasionally.
Pretty much the only person I’ve seen do this at all is that oddities/antiques dealer that Barry goes to all the time. He’ll actually say “I think I can sell this for $1500 in the store, I’ll give you $1000 for it right here.”
More annoying to me is something they do with the girls in Storage Wars: Texas, where they buy old furniture, then repaint it, glue random bits to it, whatever they need to do to make it look completely different, then ignore all that labor and just compare the sale price to the buying price. It’s like buying a locker full of lumber and then just comparing it to the sale price of the house you built out of it.
I’m not sure but I think he’s trying to use the old quiz show laws to get them into trouble.
The few antique items that I am an expert on that I saw on the show were appraised reasonably correctly. For example, that recent Brunsviga arithmometer - I collect mechanical calculators, and know exactly what they’re worth. The appraiser gave the price of $300 - it’s a reasonable price, maybe a tiny bit high for the condition issues, but not wildly inaccurate.
That said, appraisers sometimes are not interested in the stuff (not all appraisers have a resale store), and if they were they certainly are not interested in paying retail.
That seems to be the idea I got as well. I hope it turns around and bites him on the ass. Hard.
I never thought the show was real, but it is moderately entertaining. So are the rest of the bunch: American Restoration, Pawn Stars, Counting Cars, Auction Hunters. Really not that different from Antiques Roadshow when you get down to it.
He is claiming he was fired because he warned the producers that many of the things they were doing constituted fraud, that’s the basis of his suit. The specific complaints are: “Wrongful Termination, Breach of Contract, Breach of the Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing, Unfair Business Practices, and Declaratory Relief.”
http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/1211-Dave-Hester-Complaint.pdf
Reality TV fake??? At least we have something totally realistic and believable like Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory show. He’s proven, beyond doubt, there’s flying saucers and aliens here on earth. 
That beats digging for gold, driving a truck in Alaska, repoing cars or ripping people off in a pawn shop in my book.
But that would be up to the government, right? How is that a civil matter?
I’m trying to see how it could be like a rigged quiz show and the only thing I can come up with is if they seed a locker and tell some contestants but not all. That and the lack of contestants. If anything, its more of a fake documentary than a faked game show.
Or if he is going for a ‘deceive the general public’ angle then a quick google search should pull up hundreds of threads like this one where the general consensus is “Seeding? well duh.”
I dislike Hester. Is there anyone who likes him?
I watched an episode on my DVR last night. His ego is really growing wild and unchecked. I simply can’t fathom the alternate reality his deluded mind has built for himself. He better not win his lawsuit, for everyones sake (including his).