I have been reading these posts and I noticed that a lot of what is being posted is not quite correct. At the beginning of Auction hunters there is a written notice that the show is documenting their best finds. They are not showing all of the units they purchase, only the good ones.
The final episode of season one they did explain the good, the bad, and the ugly of Auction Hunting. They explained that 80% of the units they purchase are a bust. They also remind the viewer of that in several other episodes. They did one episode from Texas which was at a container auction in which they purchased 11 units and they said that 9 of them were a bust, and just showed us what they made off of the two good units. When they showed their profit from the total auction they took away what they paid for all eleven units to show what they actually made.
I personally find it interesting that both Auction Hunters & Storage Wars go to most of their auctions in the same cities, but you never see any of them on the other show. I am sure that the Networks have made them sign a disclosure agreement so that they can't go to auctions that the other show is at. On Auction hunters they go to auctions with several different Auctioneers, but Storage Wars only shows Auctions with that one specific Auctioneer.
Somebody stated that they never saw a bad unit on Storage Wars, That person obviously has not watched the show very often because I believe they have all been stuck with bad units on that show.
Do they edit the show to make it exiting? Of course they do, they want people to watch the show.
Did the characters on the show get hand picked? Barry stated that he was hanging out with a buddy of his that told him he was getting ready to produce a show about Storage Auctions & he asked him if he wanted in on the show, so obviously that answer is yes. You also have to figure that the main characters are being paid to do the show.
Does that mean that the shows are Fake? No. It does mean that if you decide to try your hand at Auction Hunting you might not want to expect that it is going to a big score every time. Remember that on Auction Hunters they say 80% of the units are a bust. That means that only 2 out of 10 units pay off.