Film crew spent full day in Clyo
The Duff family of Clyo said sharing their treasures on American Pickers was a fun experience and a nice way to honor their husband and father.
The television show that’s watched by about 2.7 million people on the History channel each week came to Effingham County in March and filmed an episode that aired last week.
In “The Bundle Brothers,” show stars Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz crawl through three containers and the former office building for the petroleum business the family operated for 30 years, finding old gas pumps and signs.
The show follows the pair as they travel the country, looking for “rusty gold” – collectible items that they purchase and re-sell in their stores in LeClaire, Iowa, and Nashville, Tenn.
Siblings Dwayne Duff, Lesa Couey and Dale Duff and their mother, Mary Jane Duff, were looking to get rid of some of the items that Delbert Duff collected over a lifetime. He died two years ago.
The episode depicts Wolfe and Fritz finding items they want and negotiating to purchase them from Dwayne and Dale Duff.
Wolfe and Fritz end up paying the family $175 for a Sinclair credit card sign, $1,000 for a gas pump and $2,500 for 16 sets of new old stock globe glass for gas pumps and two large Sinclair gas signs.
Dwayne Duff said the family could have sold the items for that much or more without going on the show, but that they did the show for the experience and to honor his father’s memory.
Rick Lott of the Effingham County Chamber of Commerce had contacted the Duff family early this year and asked them if they would be interested in being on the show.
Dwayne Duff said the family members talked it over and decided they’d like to take part.
The show sent a scout to check out the items the family had stored on their property on Old Dixie Highway. A few weeks later, the family heard that the producers wanted to include them on the show.
Early on a Saturday in March, about a dozen people rolled up to the property — Wolfe and Fritz in the van they’re seen in on the show and a couple of minivans and a camper with support crew.
They spent the day filming the show, with Wolfe and Fritz looking for items and negotiating prices with Dwayne and Dale.
The show set a limit on the number of people who would be on camera. The brothers were the main people filmed. Their mother made a brief appearance at the end.
Lesa Couey wasn’t on camera, but she was very much a part of the event. She and Dwayne and Dale’s wives, Sherry and JoAnn, fixed lunch for the crew and for family who were there for the filming — about 25 people.
Couey said the crew had said they would take everyone to lunch but there wasn’t anywhere that many people could eat on a Saturday in Clyo, so at the last minute the women fixed a big meal for a big crowd.
They served barbecue pork, macaroni and cheese, twice-baked potatoes, salad and banana pudding.
Couey said she sat next to Wolfe at lunch and learned about his wife and daughter and how he got into the business of “picking.”
“He’s very personable, just like he is on TV,” she said. “He seemed like one of us.”
Dwayne said the cameras didn’t get in the way as they were going through his father’s things, that they were able to focus on their conversations with Wolfe and Fritz without being distracted about being filmed.
Couey said in addition to running a Sinclair gas distributorship for 30 years, their father was a flight engineer in the Air Force, a mechanic at a Ford dealership, a deputy sheriff and a long-haul trucker.
In addition to old cars and car parts, he collected things that he could use as a mechanic to make other things.
Couey said her father was a gruff military man, but that he softened as he got older and as his children began having children.
She said she became especially close to him in his final years. She said he liked watching American Pickers, but didn’t want to be on the show.
“He considered what he had as treasures that didn’t need to belong to anyone else,” she said.
The family was bombarded with calls and texts from relatives and friends after the episode aired on July 29. Dwayne said a relative who is a lawyer said he needed to come negotiate for him.
He said he could, for a price.
“I don’t think it’ll change my life a whole lot,” Dwayne said about being on the show. “It’s not like winning the lottery.”
Couey said she thinks their father would be happy that they were on the show, even though they sold a few of his precious items.
“He would be proud of us, that we honored him in such a way,” she said.
“It was a good memory,” Mary Jane Duff said. “We all enjoyed it.”