Before the internet made everyone with Wi-Fi an antiques dealer, Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz searched for treasures in the only way they knew how ― by knocking on farm doors.
Together and separately, the pair spent hours talking to an old farmer down a country road, say. Or to a retired machinist out yonder. Or a country grandma with a quilting habit and an overflowing corn crib.
They’d kick up dirt roads. They’d fish out tales behind a person’s rusty bric-a-brac, behind the weathered piles peppering their yard. And in doing so they’d rummage through their personal lives as much as their stuff.
Sometimes, they’d come away with a gem ready to turn a profit. A euphoria that felt like “a gambler’s high,” as Fritz once told the Register.
Other times they’d leave with nothing but a story.
And, no, a story didn’t line their wallets, especially in the early lean years. But a story sure did satiate their souls.
Friends found Wolfe and Fritz’s lives so odd, and the adventures they’d recount so revelatory, that nearly everyone would offer the same suggestion: Gosh, this would make a good TV show.
And after hearing that enough times, Wolfe decided all those people might be on to something. He picked up a camera and started filming Fritz and him out “picking” ― what fans call their trademark brand of backroads antique hunting.
Those few hours of test tape ― mixed with years of shoe-leather worn down while hunting a production partner ― hurtled the two Iowans into the reality TV stratosphere on the beloved series “American Pickers.” Only, their fame was never marked by the table-flipping antics that make up so much of the genre, but by the way the childhood friends put people at ease, and for the space they gave Regular Joes and Jans to talk about their towns and their families and their lives.
As it is with fame, the pair also grappled with its trappings. Fritz had health problems and struggled with addiction. Fritz was fired from the show. A wave of backlash crashed over Wolfe. Fans went rabid on message boards, saying he’d ruined the magic that made the show special.
Tabloids eagerly picked apart each social media post for some element of drama. The pair fell out. They reunited. They stayed in touch, but state lines ― Wolfe lives outside Nashville and Fritz outside Davenport ― always create distance.
But when Fritz’s health declined quickly, Wolfe rushed from his home to the hospital room, just a few miles from where the friends first started sifting through junk, collecting treasures.
More: 'American Picker' Mike Wolfe wants to save rural America, and other things we learned about Iowa's master of junk
And when Fritz “took one last journey home” Monday night, Wolfe was there, among the close circle by Fritz’s side when he died in hospice . Fritz had been in poor health since having a stroke more than two years ago, the complications of which exaggerated his severe Crohn’s disease, according to friends. He was 60.
This final act mirrors the true heart of the show ― not the picks, not the characters with their collections, but a friendship. One built on a love for history and humanity and a desire to share both with the world.
“Before the show we would take off together to places we never knew existed with no destination in mind and just the shared passion to discover something interesting and historic,” Wolfe wrote in his memorial post .
“Who would have ever dreamed we would share the cockpit of a white cargo van in front of millions of people interested in our adventures.”
How Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz started picking
Buddies since middle school, Fritz’s low-key geniality tempered Wolfe’s spirited tenacity, like an antique-hunting odd couple.
They even looked the parts: Wolfe tall and wiry and Fritz shorter, stouter.
Fritz’s understated manner and dark facial hair earned him the nickname “bearded charmer” among fans.
“What you’ve seen on TV has always been what I have seen, a dreamer who was just as sensitive as he was funny,” Wolfe wrote on Instagram. “The same off camera as he was on, Frank had a way of reaching the hearts of so many by just being himself.”
Growing up the sons of single moms in Bettendorf, the pair scoured nearby alleys and the town’s weed-choked junkyard for little treasures: cigar boxes, old signs, broken toys. Trash, really ― at least to most people. But the pair saw their haul as a chance to reinvigorate something discarded, to bring it new life.
"We had a single mom, and she worked her butt off to give us what we had," Rob Wolfe, Mikes’ brother, told me last year. But there wasn't room in the budget for extras.
"That's where the picking came in. If I wanted a new bicycle, I had to find it for myself."
Fritz and Mike Wolfe both tried some form of college after high school. They got 9-to-5s, Fritz as a fire inspector and Wolfe as a bicycle repairman. But ― like the Indiana Joneses of the hoarder class ― junk always called.
Before the show hit, the friends needed their finds to make money, but Wolfe told me that even back then they were always more interested in an object’s story than in its ability to turn a buck. (That said: A good salesperson knows that a touching, exciting story can also work to drive up a tag.)
The pair’s unique ability to bring the past to life, to make it exciting, is what attracted the History Channel, a producer said when I wrote about the series celebrating a decade on the air. By digging out the emotional connections a given seller has to an object, they were able to highlight “the living, breathing, exciting reminders of our past in our present day."
The studio bought into Wolfe’s idea for a show about stuff that felt like Anthony Bordain 's culinary programs. He hoped to mimic how Bordain's show was a story of region, culture, economy, trends and lifestyle, but wrapped in a patina of soy sauce and served as though it was all about food.
More: Rob Wolfe is ready to step out from his brother's 'Pickers' shadow, create his own legacy
So the show diverted from the “Antiques Roadshow” format of shooting on a controlled set and featuring expert commentary. Instead, Wolfe and Fritz leaned on their streetwise knowledge and razor-sharp gut instincts as they traveled backroads and small-town Main Streets.
Their folksy formula created reality show gold, making the two friends celebrities to the thrifting set and “Pickers” a ratings and rerun juggernaut for years .
But just before the pandemic, Fritz’s health began to deteriorate.
Soon ― what felt like nearly overnight to lamenting fans ― he stopped appearing on the show.
A fallout, a reunion and 'one last journey home'
As the world closed down in March 2020, “Pickers” fans took to the internet to bemoan Fritz’s disappearance from the show. The bearded charmer, he was always a fan favorite.
Without official word, fans just speculated. Had a wedge been driven between the two stars?
For nearly two years, Fritz and Wolfe traded bards in tabloids, and, eventually, Wolfe confirmed on social media that Fritz was no longer on the show.
A British tabloid, The Sun, in particular breathlessly covered Fritz's post-"Pickers" life, including a split from his former fiancée, a stint in rehab for alcohol abuse, extreme weight loss and struggles to keep refreshed stock at his store, Frank Fritz Finds , in Savanna, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from the Quad Cities.
Fritz's health took its sharpest downturn on July 14, 2022, when he was found unresponsive on the floor of his Davenport home, where he may have been lying for hours. Earlier in the day, he’d been struck by a deer while on his motorcycle, according to a friend who posted updates on his condition to a private Facebook group. The accident resulted in a broken leg, which led to a blood clot and then a stroke.
Fritz was placed under a temporary guardianship a few months later, according to court documents.
“Mr. Fritz’s decision-making capacity is so impaired that he is unable to care for his own safety, or to provide for necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, or medical care,” stated a petition for guardianship filed in 2022. He was also “unable to make, communicate, or carry out important decisions concerning his own financial affairs.”
A judge soon installed a “longtime friend” as guardian of Fritz’s care, and a local bank took over conservatorship of his finances.
“I have been very private in the past year in regards to Frank's life and the journey he’s been on,” Wolfe wrote on social media at the time. “There has been lots of opinions in regards to mine and Frank’s friendship and the show but now is not the time to set the record straight. Now is the time to pray for my friend.”
“Frank I pray more than anything that you make it through this okay. I love you buddy.”
Fritz’s recovery had been rocky in the months after his stroke, including hospitalizations for seizures, high blood pressure and pneumonia-like symptoms, according to 911 tapes acquired by The Sun and updates in the Facebook group.
But toward the end of 2023, he’d been well enough to enjoy a visit from Wolfe ― the pair’s first meetup in three years ― as well as a night out with friends just before the holidays.
Despite headlines suggesting bad blood, a close friend clarified to the Quad City Times that Wolfe and Fritz were not in a feud. Instead, she says, after more than a decade of the hectic filming schedule with "Pickers," “the relationship became strained.”
“Mike Wolfe is not only a friend; he’s a devoted, die-hard friend,” the friend told the Quad-City Times after Fritz's death. “He was with him at the end. That’s how they both wanted it.”
The star of a show about transitions, where people are often selling their stuff in the wake of changes in health, family makeup, finances or even the death of a loved one, Wolfe now faces his own transition.
On the show, Wolfe manages to bring a measure of hope, if not silver-lining positivity, to the grief and uncertainty. He offers a moment for celebration when he cedes the floor for a good story.
Wolfe knows that a good story, now as then, can be just enough to satiate the soul.
He learned that lesson on the road, sharing the drive and the picks with a friend.
Note: Frank Fritz's friends say that those wishing to make a donation in his honor should do so to their local animal shelter.
Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com or 515-284-8360.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz weathered fame, public rifts to create a 'picker' empire
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