Mike Wolfe is an antique shop owner, antique picker, TV personality and author who is best known as the creator and star of the popular History TV show “American Pickers.” Wolfe began picking at the age of six, pulling old bicycles out of his neighbor’s own trash. He also began looking for antiques and other hidden treasures before he started elementary school. Wolfe has now been working as a professional picker for over 20 years. For most of those two-plus decades, he 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 2010, with the debut of “American Pickers” – a TV concept he had been pitching to various networks for almost five years before it was picked up by The History Channel. “American Pickers” debuted on The History Channel on January 18, 2010, drawing 7 million viewers. It was TV’s highest rated new non-fiction program among adults 25-54 of that year. In its fourth season, it averaged 4 million viewers a week.