The popular History Channel show “American Pickers” will feature well-known Coffee Countians David and Bryan Pennington and their unique collectibles in an episode airing at 8 p.m. Monday.
“American Pickers” follows Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz in their search for antiques and collectable treasures. The two pickers traverse the U.S. trying to find rare artifacts and buy them from the collectors. Then, they either keep those items in their personal collections or sell them in one of their stores, one of which is located in Nashville.
David and his son Bryan learned that “American Pickers” was trying to get in touch with local collectors a few months ago.
“The show had sent a flyer to radio stations in different areas asking people with large collections to contact them,” Bryan said. “Dad and I talked about it, and he was a little reluctant at first.”
Pickers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz filmed an episode of “American Pickers” at the warehouse of David and Bryan Pennington on Dec. 15. From left are David Pennington, Wolfe, Fritz, Bryan Pennington and Nancy Pennington.
–Photo Provided
However, after a week of discussions, they decided to contact the show’s producers.
“They emailed us back requesting to see pieces of the collection,” Bryan said. “Dad sent bunches and bunches of pictures. After a point, they said they were interested in the collection, and in November, Mike’s brother, Rob Wolfe, and one of the producers came down to verify that the pictures we sent matched the collection Dad has. They don’t want to send a whole production crew to a location with one knickknack shelf with just a few things on it.”
However, that was not the case with the Pennington family. The family has collected antiques for decades and has, as David said, “About 20,000 square feet of stuff in a 5,000-square-foot building.”
The building, colorful with signs on the outside, is located on the Old Manchester Highway between Tullahoma and Manchester.
“The next thing we knew, they were contacting us to say they were interested in doing a show,” Bryan said.
The crew, consisting of 14 people, filmed the show on Dec. 15.
“They stayed about 11 hours,” Bryan said. “When you watch the show, they are exactly the people you see on the show as they are in person. They are very cordial, and it was not like work. It was a very enjoyable experience for them. They spent a lot of time and asked a lot of questions.”
Nothing is set up before filming the show, said Bryan.
“When you see them walk into a location and they say, ‘Wow you have a lot of stuff,’ I can say first-hand, that was the first time they ever walked through that door,” Bryan said. “They don’t want to look ahead of time. It’s all unarranged.”
Bryan said the pickers bought some artifacts, but he couldn’t say more about the items.
“We can talk about that after Monday,” Bryan said. “We can say we did sell them some stuff, but we just can’t say what. To this day, I haven’t told anyone. Only Dad and I know.”
The Pennington family has owned a restaurant, Jiffy Burger in Manchester, for more than 50 years.
“We have always collected at the restaurant,” David said. “But in the nineties, my brother came up to me one day and said, ‘You need a
The History Channel show “American Pickers” will feature local collectors David, left, and Bryan Pennington during an episode set for 8 p.m. Monday.
–Staff Photo by Elena Cawley
hobby.’ I never had a hobby; all I had ever done was work.”
So David’s interest in collecting took off.
“It gave me something to do,” David said. “My brother gave me one cap gun, and in about four months, I had 500 of them.”
He went from buying cap guns to buying pedal cars. In no time, he had more than 100 pedal cars, and ended up selling some of them to Disney World.
“Then, I started collecting everything,” David said.
Among the items of the collection are gas pumps, oil cans, signs, marble balls, clocks, stereoscopes, photographs, paintings, Civil War items, masks, a phone booth and even an entire wall from a building which used to be located in Manchester.
