Antique Pickers

[Kobuk]

Anybody familiar with the tv show called American Pickers? Basically, it's about two guys named Mike and Frank who travel around America looking for antiques, aka..."rusty gold".....that they buy from people and then resell for $$$$. The show also tells a little about the history of the antiques being found. I've been watching this show quite a bit and I like it. I don't know anything about the monetary value of antiques, but I do like learning about the history behind various stuff such as where it's from, who made it, and so forth.

This brings me to the following:
If you were an antique "picker" and could travel back in time to "pick" old and vintage stuff to bring back to the future either to keep as collectibles for yourself or to resell, then what would you pick? What time periods and what items?

[Kay Alett]

Well I'm a transformers fan, always have been. I'd be picking through looking for anything related to Transformers. Old toys, old boxes, promo materials. That kind of stuff. Doesn't matter how old it is even if it isn't quite considered an official antique, I'd wanna grab it.

[charcoal]

I'd go back to different eras and bring back old guns and knives but I'd keep one of each

[FarFar]

I would go back to the civil war era and bring back some of the uniforms and weapons.

[Kobuk]

I might stick to the 1900 to 1950's era mostly. But other times are ok too. I'd be looking for comics, baseball cards, old movie memorabilia, antique toys and games, and especially old Harley Davidson motorcycle stuff. 

[Rocket T. Coyote]

Certain old model rocket kits, Cox and Testors .049 engined gas-powered airplanes would command high prices now. Also original Lionel trains and accessories.

Space Age stuff probably hot too. Wish I'd saved a few of those LM kits the Gulf Oil stations gave out in 1969. Saw one in a local antique place for $50. My Dad would inflate and release long balloons with a Mercury Redstone rocket printed on the side back when I was four. Those would age badly though.

Certain vintage clothing items garner spirited bidding on Ebay: Unworn backseamed nylon stockings, Playtex shapewear, old union suits, those form-fitting pixie pajamas made from the 1960s until the 1990s especially.

There are pickers who make a circuit of all the thrift shops in the state, buying up all things military. I've managed to pick up WW2-era uniforms from time to time. Sadly, a lot of those vets are no longer with us.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

Back in the 1990s, I began collecting East German stuff. It was inexpensive and if you understood the language and European sizing, then you could put together sets of uniforms for collecting or costuming/cosplay. I would sell my duplicates through the "free" weekend classified--which became folly as the pickers would often call in the pre-dawn hours. Then there would be calls for the item throughout the weekend. Back then, one could buy/sell a .30-30 rifle or Universal M1 carbine--or a car wreck--for $99--as that was the pricing limit.Then they dropped the limit to $75.

Many ads for rummage/yard/garage sales would include the line No early sales due to the pickers and antique collectors/dealers.

[Jade Sinapu]

WW2 era radios, radar, antennas, etc...
Cryptographic devices of same era.
Must be working or fixable.  Saw many on display at a museum when i was a young teenager.  Made me almost transport back in time.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

I had amassed a collection of official company photos from contractors and government agencies. One could obtain free from the Defense Audiovisual Agency Still Photo Depository, declassified photographs and transparencies of aircraft, missiles, ships, and tanks. I would write to various aircraft makers and they would send press kits of whatever was being rolled out at the time. Northrop sent me an F-20 Tigershark press kit. Most helpful when building and finishing a model of the same, in several scales.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

Our one local furry con GOH of several year's past has quite a collection of juke boxes, brewery memorabilia, and other stuff. One could picture Mike and Frank paying him a visit at his place in Florida, just to get a pie in the face. 

[Kay Alett]

I've actually had the thought cross my mind about time travel and picking heh.

Personally speaking I would go back in time and collect old signs as those seem to be in high demand. Old photographs, autographs, old toys.

I would buy these things brand new and to ensure that there is a marked passing of time I would get some type of shelter or cellar. Because if I can time travel why not use time travel to make a fine fortune?
Use that fortune to make a memorabilia cellar. And in this cellar I would stockpile massive amounts of things.

It has come to my mind that if you buy something new and take it to the future new then buyers will scrutinize it and there is a chance they will consider it a very fine forgery. But if it actually sits in a basement collecting dust for 40 or 50 years then it's authentic.

In addition to what I listed above perhaps things from the atomic age, when people were selling highly dangerous machines with unprotected x-rays and radium tonics. Memorabilia from the cold war. I'd get my hands on nearly everything Elvis related, not that I'm a fan but just to sell off to preservation societies. Maybe take a smartphone back in time and take video of the king? 
Stockpile old movies, get my hands on recordings that have been lost time and carelessness and make hundreds of redundant back up copies of things. Old movies that will never be seen again, the original broadcasts of the old Doctor Who.

Just keep it in my bunker and sell it all off slowly and gradually, auction it off to the highest bidders.

Just imagine Mike and Frank coming to me and finding out I have film reels of movies that were thought to be forever lost in cinema fires.
"You wanna buy this? Well seeing as it's pricless and all and the only one of its kind I think I could let it go for.. say. Five million dollars?"

[Jade Sinapu]

I would totally go for atomic age junk.
And I know others would find it fascinating.

[FarFar]

Go back to when radar was first invented and used. That technology changed much in the world.