Hardcore Pawn

[Johnnny5]

McCarty figures he's "helping the people of Detroit"?

Threadjack - I like Storage Wars on A & E, although they make it look far too easy. I did hear a guy say on one episode that 80% of all buys are total busts. Anyone ever hear of or participated in these locker auctions in the Detroit area?

I've been to 100's [[Maybe even 1000's) of the storage auctions here Michigan and while I lived in Florida. Ten years ago you could make decent money buying and selling the units, but it's become much more competitive since the economy soured. The TV shows came out last Winter and it's now just downright ridiculous! Now the only way to make a decent profit is if you are very, very lucky or you operate a auction house or thrift store where you can eek out a profit on the mundane items that are unsaleable on Ebay and Craigslist and are in just about every unit.
Average attendance at the sales 5 years ago was probably 10-20 people, and you had 2-5 serious bidders. Since the TV shows I have seen crowds of 150 people and more! It literally takes hours just waiting for everyone to walk past the door and spend their 20 seconds checking out the contents.
You can find most the auctions in this area at Blairauction.com. There are a few other auctioneers in the Detroit area that do storage sales, but Blair's are the most professionally run and he does a very good job keeping to the posted schedule.