When did you first hear the term "picker"?

[Stinky The Clown]

The show on History Channel seems to have popularized the term and the concept, but we all know it goes back far longer. I first heard it probably about 1980 or so, when I first started buying old fountain pens and watches. I got to know a number of antique dealers, a few of which remain my friends. Pickers were essentially the wholesalers of the trade.

When did you first hear the term? Has anyone ever been a picker?

[northoftheborder]

1. I first heard it with the TV show American Pickers, which I love.

[grasswire]

2. I first heard it about fifteen years ago.

I was being tutored by a friend who had been a paper picker and dealer in Western Massachusetts for a couple of decades. I spent two summers following him around to auctions and sales in that fertile area. He was a picker and dealer too. But he didn't call himself that. But he called his old friend a picker and that he was. He picked Cape Cod and New England shore regularly, mostly looking for photography images and paper and books.

In that sense -- the historical expert with broad access and identified buyers like museums and collectors -- I am not a picker. Much of what I do is serendipitous. I stumble across things, looking for anything I can make a buck on. Might be pottery, might be linens, might be paper, might be books.

I'm thinking of getting back in. I miss it.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Fwanker, you poor, misguided fool . . . .

Yes, I got the idea from there. But only to show you how ill-informed you are.

Here's an article from 2003 that uses the term and describes it pretty much as in the OP. I'll bet more than 13 seconds on the Google would turn up even older articles and use of the term.

http://www.journalofantiques.com/Feb03/businessfeb03.htm

So, no, fWanker, it didn't come from the teevee show.

By the way, buddy, how's the dating scene been for ya?

[Stinky The Clown]

4. If it was about anthropology . . . . .

. . . . fWanker, and the Margaret Meade thing were meaningful to your (:snort: ) work, you'd be more concerned with keeping your self-absorbed showboating yap shut.

Look, fWanker, I know this is all ya got to even approach having a life, but being a peeping tom is pretty ignoble, even for a person like you.

Gipper, can it, you silly ass kisser.

Cigarette girl, you sad sycophant.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. ...

And fWanker, no one is stalking you, even as you act like the creepiest peeping tom imaginable. Does this peeing that you do help keep your palms hair free?