5 Of The Strangest Finds On American Pickers

Since 2010 and over the course of more than 400 episodes, "American Pickers" has taken viewers on a hunt for valuable and interesting relics that have languished in the country's garages, barns, and attics. Host Mike Wolfe and former co-host Frank Fritz have found some remarkable and historically important vehicles, including the original Batmobile. That car was built by legendary Hollywood custom car builder George Barris in the 1960s, and was featured in a Season 8 episode of "American Pickers." A few seasons later, the Pickers scored a rare U13 Ford Bronco for just $30,000.

Cars, SUVs, and motorcycles are of particular interest to SlashGear readers, but vehicles are far from the only remarkable finds made by the American Pickers over the years. Here are a half dozen of the weirdest items ever uncovered by Wolfe, Fritz, and company, and a little bit of history about each item, its origin, and its ultimate fate.

It might have been divine intervention or merely coincidence when Wolfe happened upon Wolf Boy in Season 9, Episode 2. The strange figure was one of many created by papier-mâché artist Homer Tate, who was born in Texas in 1884 but later moved to Arizona. He built an array of strange creatures there, often using animal bones and human hair to lend them an extra degree of reality and creepiness.

Many of Tate's creations were used as roadside attractions, including The Thing, which is still on display at a travel station on Interstate 10 about 40 miles east of Tuscon. According to Looper, Wolf Boy had been purchased at Tate's Curiosity Shop in the 1940s, and Mike felt instantly drawn to it during his encounter more than 75 years later. "As soon as I picked him up, I felt a connection, but then, when I heard his name, 'Wolf Boy,' it was like I found my long-lost brother," the flesh-and-blood Wolfe said. He paid $100 for the creature, a bargain for such an odd piece of historical kitsch.

While the Wolf Boy was a purely fabricated curiosity, Season 5, episode 7 took viewers to a taxidermy shop in Maine where the Pickers found a genuine elephant head mounted on the wall, peering out over a collection of similarly preserved exotic animals. Mike bargained the shopkeeper down to $9,500 for the head, but its story on "American Pickers" didn't end there. 

Secure in the knowledge that the elephant head was acquired legally, the Pickers set about trying to sell it for a profit. Danielle Colby got in touch with musician Jack White, whose interest in the creatures inspired his band The White Stripes to title their fourth album "Elephant."  A visit to White's Nashville recording story led to some wheeling and dealing, and the elephant head was eventually included in a swap for a jukebox and black-and-white photo booth. "I really do love animals," White said, "and I love the majesty of taxidermy."

The Batmobile was far from the only Hollywood relic featured on "American Pickers." In Season 16, Episode 8, "The Empire Picks Back," Mike and Frank came across four Yoda sculptures in a shop run by a woman named Sandy. She quickly dialed up former Lucasfilm artist Mario Chiodo, who confirmed that the Yodas were real "Empire Strikes Back" artifacts. He gave them clues to identify his creations, and they picked out one with the glazed eyes that indicated it was genuine. The Yoda prototypes were based on designs made by Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie in 1978, and the final clay forms of Yoda were based on makeup artist Stuart Freeborn and Albert Einstein.

After a little haggling, the Pickers walked away with a genuine piece of Hollywood history for $6,200. Along with the Jedi master, Chiodo has built sculptures of abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garret for the Underground Railroad monument in Wilmington, Delaware. He's also the artist behind the Remember Them: Champions of Humanity memorial in Henry Kaiser Park in Oakland, California, which features likenesses of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

As we mentioned earlier, the Pickers have found some interesting motor vehicles during their travels, but in Season 17, Episode 4, "Hello Jell-O," the most interesting find was a vehicle that ran on a more organic type of horsepower. In the episode, a brother and sister named Walt and Kaye give Mike and Frank a look at their father's collection in a Louisiana barn. The artifacts there included a horse-drawn wagon that dated back to between 1902 and 1904 and was used to sell what was then known as "Jell-O Ice Cream Powder" and billed as "America's Favorite Dessert." Unlike modern ice cream trucks that cruise neighborhoods selling treats to the public, the Jell-O wagon carried free samples to grocers.

To buy the wagon, the Pickers joined forces with Jim and Mary Ann Sandoro, founders of a transportation-themed museum in Buffalo, New York. "We're thrilled to have it," Jim told The Buffalo News. "It's an important Western New York relic that we believe is one of the first moving advertising units to be used commercially in the United States." The show covered $6,500 of the $9,500 price of the wagon, including the substantial costs to have it shipped from Louisiana to Iowa for filming. 

Back in Season 2, before Wolfe and Fritz had their well-documented falling out, the pair discovered a set of somewhat unsettling masks depicting the iconic comedy team Laurel and Hardy, who made more than 100 films together between 1921 and 1950. The pair bore a basic physical resemblance to the American Pickers duo, with one tall, lanky member and another with a more rotund figure. The Pickers snapped up the two bizarre-looking masks for a bargain price of $60, and left the store with a haul of interesting items: a 1937 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead motorcycle, a steam-powered popcorn maker, and a KISS pinball machine. 

In the moment, Mike was keenly aware of the similarities between himself and Frank and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. "Love those guys," he said in an exclusive bonus cut posted to History's YouTube channel. "They remind me of Frankie and I." Laurel and Hardy outlasted Wolfe and Fritz by many years, but both duos provided American audiences with hours of entertainment during their careers together.

Season 10, Episode 5, "Pick or Treat," had two segments that took the Pickers to strange locations. In Pennsylvania, they visited a network of underground caverns and tunnels built by a man named Ron, who is known as "Mole Man." By the time they made it into his lair, it had been under construction for nearly half a century. The episode also featured a trip to Eagle Park, an Oklahoma amusement park that had been closed for years. The park is located in Cache, Oklahoma, and was in operation from the late 1950s through 1985 before being left to nature. By the time the episode was filmed, most of the rides were rusty and crumbling to pieces, although Danielle had earlier salvaged some of the park's bumper cars.

Mike and Frank got a tour of the park courtesy of a man named Wayne, who worked at what was his family's business from the age of six. The park was the brainchild of local farmer Herbert Woesner, who used his cattle as collateral to secure a loan to buy rides for the park. According to Abandoned Oklahoma, the park was the filming location for the 1979 comedy-adventure film "Fast Charlie... the Moonbeam Rider," which starred David Carradine, Brenda Vaccaro, and Terry Kiser of "Weekend at Bernie's" fame. The park is now on private property, so for your protection and the landowner's, it's best not to try and replicate the Pickers' trip there.