Storage Wars

Mike and I have recently been hooked on watching the A&E show called Storage Wars.  Have you ever heard of this show?  The premise of the show is that when someone can't pay for their storage unit anymore, the unit (with all the stuff inside) goes up for auction.  The show follows five or six professional buyers as they go from storage auction to storage auction hoping to find hidden treasures within.  The catch is that before they bid on it, the lock is cut and the unit is opened, but no one can walk inside or open any boxes.  So it is a bit of a gamble to bid on what you just see up front.  Sometimes they can tell the unit holds nothing but junk, while other times they count on money coming from antique furniture or tools or appliances that they spot inside.  The fun comes when they buy a unit and start digging through it for treasures.  We've seen them find things like guitars, coin collections, glass eyeballs and Russian flight suits from the Cold War Era. At the end of the show, they take their finds to have them appraised, and it is fun to see if their items are really worth anything at all.  It is pretty interesting to watch and quite addicting!  Mike and I will sometimes play along and decide which units we would bid on if we were on the show (and had a couple thousand dollars to spend!).

Even thought we don't go to storage unit auctions, we do enjoy browsing through thrift stores and antique shops hoping to find something cool.  Usually we end up just looking, but every now and then we do find something neat. Garage sales are another fun way to go "digging for treasure", but I have the worst luck at garage sales.  I never find anything but junk.  Plus, I don't have the patience to go looking for too long.

Do you like to go thrifting or antiquing?  Do you usually find hidden treasures or junk?