Morgy Shocks American Pickers with Loads of Big Boy Toys

Ron Wilshire

Ron Wilshire

Published November 2, 2016 4:45 am
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LUCINDA, Pa. (EYT) — Even though the American Pickers didn’t buy a lot of things during their visit with Morgy Jones for the “Shocked and Loaded” episode that first aired Monday night on the History Channel, they were impressed with Morgy’s big boy toys.

“Our people may have been wrong telling us that there was stuff here to pick, but man the experience of meeting Morgan, seeing the Tesla Coil, trying to hypnotize Frank, all of it added up to a pretty incredible experience,” said Picker Co-Host Mike Wolfe.

Frank Fritz was equally impressed with the visit.

“I’ll tell you what Morgan, we go to a lot of places, but you’re got the monopoly on the big boy toys,” said the other co-host as they prepared to leave at the end of the episode.

exploreClarion.com has already covered some of the treasures of Morgy Jones in two earlier articles, and the entire episode of American Pickers can also be viewed on the History Channel website at https://www.history.com/shows/american-pickers/season-16/episode-5.

pickers goodbye

“I enjoyed showing them around and sold some stuff,” said Jones. “I’m probably a millionaire with stuff, but I don’t have much money, so that helped out a lot.”

The childhood of Jones was in the forefront of this episode of American Pickers, and money never got in the way of his pursuits.  As a child, he would mow lawns to make money and buy dynamite to blow up things in his lawn.

“I love to blow stuff up,” Jones told Wolfe and Fritz. “I like the noise and everything. I loved dynamite and baled hay and did stuff, so I could buy some.  They would sell me the dynamite, because it was nothing to anyone back then. They were made out of nitro glycerin.  In 1968, they stopped selling me dynamite.”

The Pickers also asked Jones about how he got started in science and his other interests.

“I’m sort of a scientist — at least I’ve always wanted to be,” continued Jones.  “I’ve done all kinds of things for a living.  I taught high school chemistry and physics for a year, worked on cars, worked in a TV shop for a while. I describe myself as a mad scientist, and I tell everyone it’s fun to be crazy because there’s always so many more options.  I have fun in life.”

“When I was younger, my uncle — he came out of World War II and on the GI Bill and he learned electronics.  When I was 12 years old, I actually read his 54-lesson textbook and the 32 pages for each lesson.  It took me a year, but I learned the whole thing.  I was passionate about anything scientific.”

Jones showed the crew his laboratory after demonstrating his lightning machine.

“Here’s my lab.  That’s my safety poster over there because if you make a mistake in here you might look like that. I used to experiment here and make things go boom.”

Jones said he got a chemistry set when he was little, but it didn’t have all of the good stuff in it. His eyes lit up as he remembered.

hypnotizing pickers
He made an attempt to hypnotize Frank, who told the home audience he couldn’t be hypnotized, and realized he hadn’t succeeded, losing a bet on the sale of a search light for $45.00.

The actual hypnosis didn’t work on the visit, but there is no doubt that Mike and Frank were hypnotized by the personality and the experience with Morgy Jones.  The two left Lucinda as happy fans.

Editor’s Note: This is Part Three of a multi-part series on Morgy Jones.

Related Articles:

Part One: Shocked and Loaded with Morgy Jones
Part Two: Morgy Jones Collects Because He Loves It

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