- Height6′ (1.83 m)
- Mike Wolfe, creator and star of History Channel's hit TV show "American Pickers," has became a household name by dominating the world of "picking," a place where treasure is mined in old barns, crumbling sheds and dilapidated warehouses that line America's back roads and main streets. Today, he's at the top of his field, operating as a major voice in the world of interiors and collectibles, not to mention a personal empire that includes retails stores, books, product lines, endorsement deals, and an upcoming CBS sitcom pilot that he developed based on his life as America's foremost professional scavenger. Mike will also serve as the show's executive producer.
Before taking on Hollywood, Mike made his name as a professional treasure hunter, road tripping across the country in search of what he calls "rusty gold" to buy and sell in one of his two Antique Archaeology stores. Located in Le Claire, Iowa, and Nashville, Tennessee, the stores feature actual vintage and antique treasures Mike has picked up on the road as well as official merchandise associated with his Antique Archaeology brand.
Born in Joliet, Illinois, Mike is the second of three children raised by a single mother. Though he began picking at the tender age of six, pulling old bicycles out of his neighbor's trash in Bettendorf, Iowa, Mike has been working as a professional picker for over 20 years. (He logged time as a competitive bicycle racer and owned two bike shops before settling into his picking career). For most of those two-plus decades, Mike went about his business with little fanfare, putting some 60,000 miles on his cargo van each year as he traversed the country in search of cool finds. His anonymity ended in January of 2010, with the debut of "American Pickers," a TV concept he pitched to various networks for almost five years before it was picked up by The History Channel.
A certified hit, the show attracted 3.1 viewers for its first episode, making it the highest rated History Channel debut in three years. (Mike is credited as the creator, executive producer and co-host of the series.) That first season, as many as 5.4 million viewers tuned in each week, making it cable TV's highest rated new non-fiction program of 2010 among adults 25-54 - and Mike a bona fide American idol.
Now entering its fifth season, "American Pickers" continues to pull in 4.7 million viewers for new episodes. The success of "Pickers" allowed Mike to expand his retail business (the Nashville store opened in 2011) and buy a house near Leiper's Fork, Tennessee, a quirky little country town about a half hour south of Nashville, where he lives with his wife Jodi and daughter Charlie, and two beloved Australian blue heelers, Ruby and Scout. The couple also has a home in Le Claire.
In 2012, Mike expanded his personal business empire, announcing several new side businesses. Rustorations is a collection of lighting that "gives new life to old fixtures and vintage lighting parts by forging them into functional, one-of-a-kind furniture for your home or office." Pieces are available for sale in the Nashville Antique Archaeology store. Kid Pickers is an online community that gives kids aged 7 to 13 a forum to share their own picks. A Kid Pickers book - a how-to guide to picking written with children's specific needs in mind - will be published by Macmillan (Feiwel and Friends) in spring 2013; it will be Mike's second book, following 2011's "American Pickers Guide to Picking."
Mike's success has allowed him to expand his reach as a humanitarian. He routinely hosts event and encourages fund raising projects that benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospital, Operation Smile, the ASCPA, and animal shelters.
A longtime music lover with a special affinity for Americana and old school country, he's co-produced an album called Music to Pick By, a mix of picking-compatible tunes complied by legendary Nashville producer Brian Ahern. The record will feature three new songs composed and recorded by Mike and country singer/songwriter Dale Watson. The release date is TBD.
In September of 2012, CBS announced it had purchased Mike's latest TV project, a scripted, multi-camera workplace comedy set in an antiques and collectibles shop. The show, which will be directed by actor-turned-director Fred Savage, will be based on Mike's life and experiences as a picker. Mike is one of the executive producers. Mike recently signed an endorsement deal with Indian Motorcycle, a brand he loves and rides.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous Nashville
- SpouseJodi Faeth(September 7, 2012 - present) (filed for divorce, 1 child)
- ChildrenCalie
- His use of "picker slang"
- Loud and frequent laugh
- High energy
- Mike began picking at the age of six, pulling an old bicycle out of his neighbor's trash. He cleaned it up and sold it to another kid for $5 - his first profitable flip.
- Mike and "American Pickers" co-star Frank Fritz met in junior high school.
- Mike married Jodi Faeth on September 8, 2012, in an "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"- themed ceremony in Leiper's Fork, Tennessee.
- After the $8.7 million effort to restore the historic Franklin Theatre in Franklin, Tennessee, was completed a few years ago, Mike was recruited to provide vintage 1940s fixtures for the green room.
- In his early 20s, Mike was a competitive bicycle racer (from '89 until '98, he was Cat 4 and Cat 3). He also owned two different bike stores in Iowa during the 1990s: The Village Bike Shop in East Davenport and a store in Eldridge, Iowa, that he financed from the money he made by selling a 1934 Harley Davidson motorcycle to a collector in Bangkok, Thailand.
- [on working hard and his current success] I'm a businessman, so I'm gonna make hay while the sun's shining. I've been self-employed for 23 years. That's an accomplishment in itself. You gotta be out there hustling. If you're not, you're not gonna make it. ... Everything has an expiration date. I'm a realist. Do I think I'm Pickin' Jesus? No. That's ridiculous.
- [on his first bike] It was a Kawasaki 100, a little Enduro. It was sitting in a friend's garage, kind of beat-up and rundown. He had a couple older brothers who had moved on and left the bike. I traded him my stereo speakers for it. I never took it home, though, because my mother would have absolutely killed me if she knew I owned a motorcycle, so I kept it in different friends' garages. Motorcycles keep me on the road. All the other stuff is gravy.
- [on racing bikes competitively] I started racing pretty heavy, from like '89 until '98. I did road racing and criteriums. I was a Cat 4 rider, and then I moved up to a Cat 3 for a little while, and then I kind of got out of it. When you run a bike shop, you never really get out of it, though, because you're around it so much. ... I liked the Italian stuff. I rode Bottecchias. My first really high-end bike was a Viner and that was my first handmade frame, and I always rode Campagnolo. Even when I was in high school, I had a Super Record Campy bike, which was a very expensive bike back then. I had an Atala, which is another Italian bike. I raced that quite a bit, did really well on that one. When the balloon-tire craze was hot, I was buying Phantoms and Panthers, anything with a horn tank. I love the Schwinn stuff. But I was a purist. I grew up watching these pros and they were all riding handmade Italian Colnagos and Medicis and all that stuff. And everything was Campagnolo, and it was all exotic and amazing and beautiful. I wanted that, so when I started racing and had my own shop, those were the kind of bikes I rode.
- [on his first pick] I was walking to school one day and saw all these bikes in the garbage. I was just amazed because I didn't have one and I found it incredible that anyone was throwing them out. So I gathered up as many as I could and put them all in our garage. They were mostly banana-seat bikes from the '60s, maybe one was a Schwinn. There was a girl's balloon-tire bike, too. That was the first bike I learned to ride because there was no bar in the middle-I was little, so I would ride it almost right above the cranks. ... Then I sold one. It didn't take much to get it going. I put air in the tires and cleaned it all up and stuff, and then I sold it to an older kid down the street. I think I was six then. I was always fascinated with bikes because when I was young I was very small and slow, but I could go fast on a bike.
- [on seeing a motorcycle for the first time] I was 13 when I saw my first motorcycle. I was walking down the sidewalk when this guy who was like the high school champion stud-he was the team quarterback, got all the chicks, everything-did this incredible burnout on his Honda 900. I can remember the day so clearly, how warm it was, and him looking at me as I walked by. I thought, "Oh, man. That is the coolest thing in the world." That's what started me on my journey of wanting a motorcycle.
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