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Collector sells York antiques to 'American Pickers'

Abbey Zelko
York Daily Record

Originally published December 2015. 

When Bob Sholly purchased Locust Lane Mill in Pennsylvania, the four-story building was completely empty.

But by the time Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz from the History Channel show “American Pickers” showed up, the place was so jam-packed of antiques that they could barely walk through it.

Sholly said it took him about 25 years to fill the mill in Manchester Township, York County. 

His collection started with an antique clock his grandmother gave him when he was 10 or 12 years old. At the time, he didn’t have the money to start a collection of his own. So, he spent years saving up while working as a carpenter, national motorcycle racer and now owner of Good Old Boy Country Auctions.

When he could afford it, Sholly started picking through yard sales, flea markets and even other people’s trash.

“I’m as good a picker as them guys are,” Sholly said about Wolfe and Fritz. “Anything that looked neat, I bought.”

Good Old Boy Country Auctions owner Bob Sholly began his collection with an antique clock given to him by his grandmother when he was a boy. He says it has taken him about 25 years to fill the mill. Sholly was featured on an episode of the History Channel's "American Pickers."
Good Old Boy Country Auctions owner Bob Sholly stands for a portrait Thursday at Sholly's auction house in Manchester Township.

Around 2014, his collection caught the eye of the “Pickers.”

Since 2010, Wolfe and Fritz have been traveling around the country picking antiques for resale or for their personal collections and airing their findings on “American Pickers.”

Following a recommendation from the Hershey Museum, they sent scouts to check out the mill, and within a few weeks, Wolfe, Fritz and their camera crew were pulling in the driveway.

At first, Sholly said he turned down the opportunity, but he quickly reconsidered because he didn’t want to let the Hershey Museum down.

“You get a new experience in life, you take advantage of it,” he said.

Before Wolfe and Fritz even walked through the front door, they had picked out about 10 signs they wanted, Sholly said.

“That was just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Then, they started going through everything.”

Signs, tools, furniture and other items are shown Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015, at Good Old Boy Country Auctions owner Bob Sholly's auction house in Manchester Township. Sholly was featured on Dec. 16's episode of the History Channel's "American Pickers," in which antique "pickers" Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz toured Sholly's collection and made a few purchases.

The “Pickers” spent about 12 hours at the mill, looking through Sholly’s items.

They picked a menu chalkboard, table, ornamental cast iron, drill press and lots of feed signs from Fritz’s home state of Iowa. They also bought a few central Pennsylvania items, including an old trunk from Hershey’s Baking Co. and a keystone-shaped inspection sign.

By the time they were finished, they had purchased about 55 items at prices varying from about $10 to $1,000.

“Ninety-five percent of the stuff they touched, I sold them,” Sholly said.

The only things he wouldn’t sell were a clock with his girlfriend’s name on it and his motorcycle items.

The half-hour segment of the show, which first aired Dec. 16, 2015, didn’t have time to show everything Wolfe and Fritz bought.

One of the most interesting items was not shown on TV, he said. It was a one-of-a-kind wheelchair from the Civil War that Sholly bought at a motorcycle show years ago. Injured soldiers used to sit in the chair and use a hand-crank to make it go, he said.

Another was an approximately 6-by-3 foot, two-sided RCA sign, which Sholly sold to Wolfe for $1,000.

Since the episode aired, Sholly said his phone has been ringing off the hook with friends calling about the episode.

“All day long we got phone calls from all over the U.S.,” he said.

But he didn’t do the show to get recognition.

“It was just a fun thing for me,” he said. “It’s kind of neat to be my age and to get a new opportunity in life … It was a good opportunity to get rid of the stuff, and I didn’t have to work hard to do it. They fattened up my pocket book and were on their way.”

The episode titled “Have Yourself a Merry Pickers Christmas” can be watched online if you have a TV provider sign-in.

Bob Sholly, center, owner of Good Old Boy Country Auction, chats with Roy Stare of Cumberland County. Sholly is selling about one thousand items of Americana he has collected over the years.