'Auction Hunters' premieres LIVE on Spike TV tonight & my exclusive INTERVIEW!

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and hosts Allen Haff & Ton Jones of 'Auction Hunters' are out to prove this once again as Season Three of the hit unscripted Spike TV series, ' Auction Hunters' premieres LIVE on Wednesday, March 21 at 9 PM PT/ET with host Mike Catherwood.

In my exclusive interview with Allen & Ton, I learned why these two are amongst the best in the business. This isn't just a job for them, but a true passion for both. I also learned what we might expect to find during their unprecedented live kick off & how fans can get a piece f the action.

Me: Hi guys, thanks so much for talking to me today. I was surprised to learn that there are thousands of abandoned storage units being put up for auction daily. What are some of the reasons people let their valuable items go.

Ton:  It can be for a number of different reasons, anything from a hardship or a divorce. A lot of people don’t realize this, but we actually had one of the people on the show that was working with us that had the same mind frame that most people do. They think, I’ve been storing this unit paying $200 a month for the last 6 years and say I don’t remember there being that much stuff really worth anything in there. Instead of going back and paying the 6 months that are owed on that unit, they think it’s not worth the items that are in there.  Some don’t remember the items that were put in there. It gets passed on, they don’t feel like paying it, it gets too expensive & people can’t afford it. Sometimes a family member pass on & then the other generation that was meant to take care of it, didn’t want to pay the bill or couldn’t afford it and they let it go. We’ve had some where they’ve gone to jail. They say I don’t want it & turned it over because they can actually call the storage facility if they owe a bunch of money and say you know what  I’m signing this unit to the storage facility because I can’t afford to  pay it off.

Me: Are you more likely to find higher ticketed items here in LA?

Allen:  California is the 12th largest economy in the world  & most of that wealth is concentrated in this area. So I don’t think there’s anywhere better than where we are naturally stationed, as far as the most amount of money that you can find in units. Though really every city has its nice part of the city & typically that’s where the best stuff is found.

Me: What would you typically find here in Los Angeles?

Allen: Obviously in Los Angeles this is where show business is, so we get to see a lot of autograph memorabilia, a lot of collections. That’s the thing about the LA. You’ve got the fans, you’ve got the collectors, you’ve got the movie stars. When those units come up a lot of times they are rented in the name of their assistants or their friends or somebody that no longer works for them, so that’s one reasons they didn’t know their stuff is coming up for auction. Ton & I have seen some pretty amazing things & a lot of it we haven’t sold out of respect for the celebrities like videotapes, photographs that nobody needs to see that kinds of stuff. So really this is an incredible area as far as the Hollywood memorabilia & that type of thing. When there’s this much money & this much transition everyone’s always moving, & when you’re successful, you move up ,you get the bigger place. Sometimes while you are making over your mansion, you put stuff in storage & sometimes you decide it’s not worth it.  There are a million different reason but the largest one is people don’t appreciate what they have. The grass is always greener on the other lawn. Look twice at your mother in laws junk, because it can’t all be junk. Anytime we hit those rooms that there’s 60 years old full of stuff Ton & I get giddy. Anything 50 years old is going to be worth something.

Me: Let’s talk about your upcoming LIVE Auction Hunters special. Who’s idea was it to go LIVE?

Allen: We joked about it & unfortunately somebody heard us. The point we were trying to make was, people should really see what happens & what we really do because by the time they cut the show up it looks a lot easier than our real life jobs. We wanted the opportunity to go straight to the fans with that but somebody decided that would be interesting so here we go.

Me: I understand all proceeds will be going to charity. Tell me about the charity.

Ton:  This is actually pretty cool. The money that’s going to be raised from the auction & selling of the items, as well as a portion of the donations being matched by Spike TV, will be going to the IAVA, Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America. It’s a pretty important thing. These are the people fighting for our peace & for us to be able to do what we do.

Allen: Ton & I get a lot of attention & credit but really the fact is that any one of those guys that are over there fighting for us is worth more than me, Ton, the whole show & probably just about anybody in the genre. We really want to honor those guys and what an exciting opportunity. That really was the pushing point for us too.

Me: What’s exciting as well is that your fans will also be able to interact with you during the show via Twitter & be able to win some pretty cool prizes. How can they get involved?

Ton: The items they are giving away are from past shows that we’ve done. Items that we’ve picked up & didn’t sell. So what we’re doing is to keep people involved and make them a little bit more of part whole process. There will be random giveaways while people are tweeting to Spike_TV on Twitter.

Allen: You can also type in #AuctionHunters  & specify what you are interested in. I can tell you that when they said do you guys have anything for the cause, one of the things we are giving up is a very high end nice piece of historic, I don’t want to blow it, autograph. It’s an autograph photograph that has several very important sports figures that signed it & would be worth some big bucks. So I’m excited our fans get a chance to win this without getting their hands dirty.

Me: Speaking of Twitter can people follow both of you?

Allen:  Yes do I finally get to promote my twitter? AllenLeeHaff

Ton: Mine is TonsRescue

Me: Any highlights you’d like to mention that we’re going to see this upcoming season?

Allen: What I’m most excited about is a week from Wednesday, we’re opening up in the wildest place a person can go to in the United States, Alaska. I’m telling you it’s incredible. I have to tell u the stuff we shot is so beautiful. I saw dailies & thought I was looking at high end Hollywood movie. The footage is gorgeous & we found some really cool stuff. So Alaska is by far the star this season.

Me: What advice would you give advice to someone who wants to do what you do to try to make extra money on the side?

Allen: Start small. With the competition now you have to hit the ground running. You have to know what you are buying. You really can’t lose. You can pick up a storage unit on average  for about $80, $90 bucks.  Hey they were probably spending $300 a month just to store it, so they thought it was worth more. Start out small. Don’t get carried away. The best thing you can do is go to an auction and not buy a thing & just watch how it goes.

Ton:  Make sure you have room to store everything you just bought. Make sure that you don’t fill the garage that your wife kicks your butt & don’t spend what you can’t afford to lose.

Me: What do you like best about what you are doing now?

Allen: I’ll tell you what it is for me. The idea that I can share something that I’ve been passionate & enthusiastic about my whole life. That I can actually sort of turn younger people towards antiques which really celebrate our nation because we were on the cutting edge of ingenuity for so long that most of the innovation that we saw with technology at the turn of the century is thanks to us. So to be able to have a show where we get to celebrate that American ingenuity & make people feel a lot better about what we’ve accomplished, I’ve got to say I’m honored to do that.

Ton: It’s for me a lot of it is I just enjoy the everyday treasure hunt, going out there with a friend & being able to go on these treasure hunts day in and day out & discover Americas history & keep learning. I like to learn & just soak up everything I can about everything. To have the chance to do that with a friend, working with Allen & to be able to go across the country , to all of these new places & find a little history about each place& the uncovering of all these vintage artifacts. It’s almost overwhelming & it makes doing this a pleasure instead of a job.

Me: Why should people tune into your live special?

Ton:  Anything can happen.

Allen: You’re going to get to see the real us without someone standing between us. Your gonna get a better idea of the human beings we are. Hopefully.  We’ll see how it goes. This is going to be weird. 

Tune into the Premiere LIVE special kick off of Season 3 of ‘Auction Hunters’ tonight on Spike TV at 9:00PM/PT & ET. Check out  preview clips of tonight’s show or watch full episodes of previous seasons  at : http://www.spike.com/shows/auction-hunters

Treasure Hunting in Santa Monica with Spike TV’s ‘American Digger’ Ric Savage

In today’s economy, who wouldn’t want to cash in with hidden treasures found in their own backyard. Spike TV’s new series, ‘American Diggers,’ which premieres Wednesday, March 21, at 7:00 PM PST, travels around the country with host & former professional wrestler Ric Savage, uncovering hidden gems in everyday Americans backyards & splits them for profit.  They’ll also be targeting battlefields & historic sites across America, in the hopes of striking it rich, while uncovering & preserving pieces of American history. I had the pleasure of meeting up with host, Ric Savage, recently on the beaches of Santa Monica, near the Santa Monica pier, in the hopes of uncovering my own local hidden treasure, as well as hearing all about his new show, ‘American Diggers.’

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet with me today. What made you want to make the transition from being a professional wrestler to a relic hunter?

Ric Savage: Being a professional wrestler was never one of my goals in life. I always wanted to be some kind of entertainer. I used to want to be a rock singer or a guitar player but I can’t sing and I can’t play the guitar. When I got out of the army, my friend was running a pro wrestling school so I started doing that just as a fun thing and I ended up getting some breaks & made a job out of it but I never had a real passion for it. I met a lot of great people and enjoyed doing what I did but wrestling wasn’t something I lived & breathed but history always was.

How has your background as a pro wrestler helped you in your new venture as a relic hunter?

Ric Savage: The best thing wrestling ever taught me was how to network with people, how to talk to people, how to deal with a lot of different kinds of people in different situations & being a good guy & a bad guy teaches you how to be able to have a thick skin.

You mentioned it helped you deal with different people. I watched a sneak preview of your show & you knock on a lot of doors. What’s surprising to me is not everyone is open to wanting to work with you & have you go digging in their backyards. How has your background helped you to overcome the obstacles?

Ric Savage:  When you wrestle, when you are doing the independent circuit you are self promoting. As a self promoter, you spend a lot of time doing autograph sessions. That how you make money, you sell them. You literally become like a street hustler. Learning how to talk to people and negotiating with people & just kind of schmoozing people, it’s like being an outside salesman. It’s the same concept. You take that & when I knock on someone’s door, you try to be disarming & you’ve got 10 seconds to see if they’re going to like you or not. That’s the average time it takes for someone to determine whether they want to talk to you. So I get a 10 second window from the time I walk up to their door to get into a presentation to explain what I want to do. A lot of times, I’m a big guy & it could be a little freaky to people when I walk up but then they see I’m fairly harmless.

The artifacts found in people’s backyards on ‘American Diggers’ isn’t just for show. You are also splitting profits with the owners of the properties you dig on.

Ric Savage: What amateur diggers don’t like about us is that we’re willing to give up part of the $. For most diggers, the idea is you go to the homeowner, you get permission, you go dig & whatever you find you sell it or keep it for your own collection. What we do, we’re renting your property. Every digger will tell you, oh you’ll never get in there, that guys hard to deal with. He might be, but if you give him an incentive he won’t be that hard to deal with.  I came to the idea, as much as I want to keep everything I find because I love it, if I sell it, I still get to enjoy it find it, make that connection with history and this guy is going to make that money too. Now he’s got an incentive to let me dig in a place I wouldn’t normally be able to dig.

Tell me about your company American Savage.

Ric Savage: The company got started with the show. Relic digging was a hobby & a passion.  The hardest part about relic digging is getting into the right properties. There’s certain places everybody’s dug & there’s places nobody’s dug. So if you can find a hook to talk to them & get them to let you to dig, you’re going to get some place no one else has got.

What are some of the locations we’re going to see this season?

Ric Savage: Tombstone, AZ, Alaska, Louisiana, St. Augustine, Florida, Brooklyn, NY, Detroit, Chicago,

Today we’re here at the Santa Monica Beach. What are some hidden treasures local Angelinos might find?

Ric Savage: The whole area of Los Angeles was originally owned by Native Americans, the Spanish came here first. So this was part of the Spanish empire. When Mexico had their independence from Spain, they took over California, Los Angeles the whole area here. Then it came to the United States in 1848 with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican war. So this area has had a lot of transitional history Spanish, Mexican, US. The kind of stuff that you might expect to find here on the beach, because the sand turns over so much are modern coins and jewelry. People that beach hunt are looking for rings, watches, earring necklaces stuff that bathers lose. Santa Monica itself, all these piers, around the turn of the century making piers was a big deal & all the major cities in the country did these piers.  Piers were the amusement parks of the turn of the century. You can still find potentially if you get into the right spots some older coins, older jewelry maybe dropped 30, 40, 50 or 100 years ago.

If someone out there thinks they may have some treasures in their backyard, how do they contact you & your crew?

Ric Savage: They would contact us right now through Spike TV.

What can someone at home do to get started?

Ric Savage: If I wanted to be a metal detectorist at home, & I was into the hobby, the first thing you have to do is find a machine you can afford. The prices on the low end are about $300 & go into the thousands. A machine that detects gold is $5000 but you can get started at $300.

I thought it would be fun to try my hand at treasure hunting while at the beach with Ric Savage. He bought along 3 pieces of equipment: a V3i metal detector, a BeachHunter & a sand scooper. Ric let me test out the V3i metal detector, which allowed us to detect a foot and a half under the sand & showed me how to sweep the sand. Ric himself has found civil war artifacts at during his own beach hunts in South Carolina. Unfortunately, I came up empty handed. As Ric said, hunting requires lots of time & patience. Additionally, if this were a true beach hunt he would have brought out the big guns.

Ric Savage: Truthfully, if I was going to do this, I would use ground penetrating radar if I was legitimately doing an artifact dig because we’ve usually only have a day to get in and get out & it’s a lot of territory to cover. Surface hunting can take you a lot of time. With ground penetrating radar you can see 18 feet down.

What’s your favorite part about what you’re doing now?

Ric Savage: My favorite part is that I’m doing a job that allows me to do what I love to do with the people that I love to do it with & I get to go around the country. I get to meet a lot of great people. I get to see every historical site in the country in one way shape or form. That’s what I love. History is my passion.

Watch Ric Savage & his crew on the premiere episode of ‘American Diggers’ this Wednesday, March 21^st at 7:00 pm PT, on Spike TV. You can catch a sneak preview of the show & learn more about Ric & his crew at this link: http://www.spike.com/shows/american-digger/

'Bachelor' Ben's proposal photos leaked!

Reality Steve has done it again. Way back when, he revealed who ‘Bachelor’ Ben chooses in the end.  We all now know that Ben’s Final 2 choices are Lindzi & Courtney. No doubt, this will be one of the best finale’s in that show’s history.
*SPOLER ALERT* Reality Steve confidently wrote that ‘Bachelor’ Ben chooses Courtney in the end. He even went as far as sharing the details that it would happen atop a mountain, the Matterhorn in Switzerland to be exact. Well, everything he said so far has proven to be true & now there’s proof of his final rose prediction. Apparently, actual photos of the finale & Ben’s final rose proposal have been leaked & Reality Steve has em posted at the following link on his site.  The photos are pretty clear & both girls look stunning, both in long black dresses.
http://realitysteve.com/2012/03/01/the-bachelor-ben-finale-spoiler-picture/

I suppose it’s possible that ABC is trying to throw us all off & film fake proposals. However, I highly doubt it. What may possibly be the reason for the leakage is that US Magazine is now reporting that Ben has been cheating on his fiance & has been caught with other women, even going as far as posting photos in their latest issue. So, perhaps the accidental proposal photo leak, was so we all believe that there is indeed a proposal at the end of all of this.
This coming Monday, March 5,  is the ‘Women Tell All’ episode airing on ABC at 8:00 pm. Reality Steve claims that Courtney will on set addressing all the women who hate her. This may be to throw us all off as well because normally the Final Two do not show up to ‘The Women Tell All.’
The ‘Bachelor’ Finale airs the following Monday, March 12 at 8:00 pm. I’ll be glued to my set of course. (One of the few times I’ll actually watch a show live & not dvr’d). However, what’s going to be most interesting of all will be the ‘After The Final Rose’ show. Throughout this season of ‘Bachelor’ Ben has made it known that his biggest fear is that he chooses the wrong girl. He also wants his girl to get along with all of the women in his life & others. Surely, after watching this season and all the behind the scenes of what appears to be a conniving Courtney, he is now having serious doubts. Speaking of conniving, did anyone else notice that Courtney's supposed fake vows during her hometown date were partially stolen from Carrie in "Sex and The City?" I noticed it right away as a diehard SATC fan. Carrie's quoted come from her convo in Paris with Mikhail Baryshnikov, who played her boyfriend over a few episodes "I am someone who is looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other-love." The opening line Courtney recited with too similar  sounding "I'm looking for love. Real, passionate, can't-live-without-each-other-love." So, even when not around the other girls, she comes off as not that trustworthy. Perhaps, the producers wrote those vows. Who knows for sure? Outside looking in, it didn't come off as sincere. We all saw how Ben began to question everything last week, when Kacie (who gets along with everyone) showed up in Switzerland and told Ben he'd be making the wrong decision if he chose Courtney. It's interesting to note that this is all sounding eerily similar to Ashley's 'Bachelorette' season & her attraction to the meanest guy in TV history, Bennett. Even though everyone tried to warn Ashley, she had to find out on her own. Well sort of, she saw how she was being played while watching the season like the rest of us. Luckily, Bennett left the show early & Ashley chose JP & the rest is history. They are now engaged & seem to be very happy together. With Ben, it's a bit trickier, as the mean girl made it to the end. I’m wondering if Ben will indeed pull a Jason Mesnick, and choose the runner up instead. Think Molly vs Melissa. After dating in real life, Jason decided his final rose pick, Melissa Rycroft, wasn’t the one. Instead he chose Molly Malaney. They are actually now married. I’ve been a huge fan of Lindzi from day one. It could happen. What do you think?
Check out last week’s show featuring the fantasy suite dates. All of Ben’s 3 dates accepted. The location in Interlaken, Switzerland is worth watching alone. View the entire episode on
www.abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelor