Last spring Bill Triplett told the collector from North Carolina he would not sell him the old Garst Brothers Dairy milk truck. Would not.
The man traveled anyway to Triplett's home in Stewartsville to examine the 1938 Divco-brand truck.
"He kept putting these hundred dollar bills in my hand until it got so heavy he left here with it," said Triplett, 76.
That was when the whole selling thing really got cracking. That was, as "pickers" say, the ice breaker.
"I wasn't prepared for all this," Triplett said last week, smiling. "People knew I had all this stuff but I never would sell it."
Triplett's son, Billy, had started to suspect his father might be willing to part with some of the stock he'd accumulated since becoming an eclectic collector at age 12. Billy Triplett contacted "American Pickers" — a reality TV show on the History Channel. He emailed a couple of photos.
Frank Fritz of the show has said, "We travel the back roads of America looking for rusty gold. We're looking for amazing things buried in people's garages and barns."
The pickers buy items they believe they can resell at a profit.
The show sometimes encounters "quirky characters" along the way. Some send the pickers packing.
Others, like Triplett, a bail bondsman with a colorful occupational history, have reached a certain age and decided it's time to start letting go. He said he's had eight strokes in recent years.
"You don't want to part with it but once you start selling it you can't get rid of it fast enough," Triplett said.
He smiled.
"I'm getting ready to go to heaven and you can't take it with you," he said.
Mike Wolfe and Danielle Colby Cushman from "American Pickers" arrived with camera crews this summer at Triplett's home — a compound consisting of the mobile home in which Triplett resides, four storage garages, an office trailer, one other mobile home and three trailers once pulled by trucks.
Antique vehicles rust in the yard. They include, among others, a 1947 bus that once served the city of Roanoke and three Hudson automobiles. (He recently sold two other 1947 buses.)
Wolfe typically goes picking with Fritz and Cushman staffs the office. But Fritz was off at a high school reunion so Cushman joined Wolfe.
Triplett said the pair spent hours combing through his garages and trailers. They dickered over price when they found something they liked.
Triplett clearly enjoyed the process. And the company.
He said he teased Cushman about her tattoos.
And, with a mischievous grin, speaking rapid-fire like an auctioneer, he told her and Wolfe, "My mother never would let me drink, cuss, smoke, chew, gamble, lie, fool with fast women or slow horses."
For $2,000, the pickers purchased a Koolmotor globe from an old gas pump. For $450 they bought an antique Dr Pepper vending machine. Triplett sold them a weather-beaten Martin guitar he'd once found beneath a tree for $100 and a host of other items, including antique materials from Odd Fellows lodges.
The episode featuring Triplett as a segment in the show ran Jan. 30.
The broadcast left the impression Fritz and Cushman stumbled upon Triplett at random, spotting his buses while passing by on Virginia 24 east of Vinton. The show refers to this spontaneous discovery as -"free-style picking," which differs from following up on leads.
An advance man had already visited Triplett's place before Wolfe and Cushman arrived.
"It was absolutely not a free-style pick," said Billy Triplett.
But neither he nor his father cared about the apparent misrepresentation.
"They're just trying to make good TV," said Triplett.
Triplett, who began life as an orphan, started young making money. He worked as a newspaper boy's helper until he was old enough to fling papers alone. He worked as a milk delivery boy until he was old enough to drive and deliver his own route.
He once owned a share of a radio station. He worked in real estate for 30 years.
He doesn't know why he became a collector.
"How should I know? But when you start young and you don't ever turn anything loose you end up with a lot," Triplett said.
Months before last week's broadcast, word had spread about the visit by "American Pickers." Triplett said the phone calls started soon thereafter. They have continued and increased after the episode aired.
Thus, since last summer, he's been turning stuff loose — antique milk bottles, antique gasoline pumps, old automotive signs.
"It happened so fast," he said. "It just mushroomed."
He said "American Pickers" treated him fairly. Some critics have suggested the show sometimes takes advantage of older people who might not know the full value of what they own.
"They were good to me," Triplett said. "They paid cash."
The show suggested the pickers might be able to resell the Martin guitar for $500. But that didn't bother Triplett.
"I didn't have nothing in it," he said.
Billy Triplett said he called "American Pickers" because he believed that his father might get a kick out of meeting with the buyers and being on the show.
"I was trying to get his mind off other things," Billy said.
That strategy seems to have paid off.
Triplett has become a celebrity of sorts.
"I went in the grocery store the other day and a woman told me, 'I've seen you,'" he said.
And the phone keeps ringing, Triplett said.
"If that guy hadn't called and bought that milk truck, I guess none of this would have happened and I would have died and all this stuff would have been piled up out here and burnt."
Source: http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/304577
By: Duncan Adams
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