My Review of "Salvage Kings: Season 1 and 2"

Salvage Kings was introduced to me sometime this year by my brother. He loves these shows where they find old things where they least expect them and profit off of these finds. Needless to say we've watched through Storage Wars for a long time until we found out that a lot of the treasures they found in the storages were planted. Then we watched a lot of American Pickers as well as Pawn Stars. It was all cool and all but living in Canada we didn't see too many based in Canada.

This TV series actually starts pretty much like a regular TV show where we get introduced to each of the characters. They hire two new employees at Priestly Demolition Inc. The main individuals that they surround the show around are Ted, Julian and Justin.

Ted has all of the expertise in salvaging while Justin is the polar opposite. Justin just got hired and he's learning the ropes from Ted. Then there's Julian who helps out with a lot of the demolition for each of the places they're assigned to.

I guess the premise is that Priestly Demolition Inc is a demolition company but at times they're allowed to go in a few days before the demolition to salvage anything that they want from the site. All of the places that they're asked to destroy are pretty old establishments. With old establishments you're going to find some pretty old relics. Then again I even have to question this because some of the stuff they find in these places are pretty odd. After the whole Storage Wars controversy I find it hard to believe any of these shows anymore.

The fact that this show is based in Ontario Canada makes it a little closer to home for me. There are a few places that I have driven through although I don't really recognize any of the establishments they've been hired to destroy. At least some of the stuff is fairly familiar and even the accents on the people involved are very Canadian.

That's not to say that there haven't ever been Canadian shows like this. I remember watching a Canadian Pickers a while back. It was fun as well but there's always some unease to me when I see these people going to houses of the unfortunate and just taking everything they have from them and then making money off of those things.

In some ways I see that in Salvage Wars but its not so bad because they're hired to destroy the place anyways. If they weren't going to take the artifacts out of the place the artifacts would have been ruined otherwise through some other demolition company. In some instances you'll see that they'll save some precious items for people in the community and that's really nice to see.

I do like how they show that they actually do sell the items that they found in these places closer to the end of the show and a big sale at the end of the season. You'll get a glimpse of who is actually interested in all of these old relics that they find and you understand why Ted is so good at his job. He knows his clients and he's a wealth of knowledge. That naturally comes from so many years in his line of work.

It's a good eye opening reality that not anyone can just do the things that these guys do. They have to build a rapport with their clients and know what they like. Knowledge of what's valuable and what isn't is also a crucial skill to have. So many of the skills required for this job really comes down to the amount of time you've been doing this. Even Ted has some down moments where he miscalculated the value of certain things.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this show and more than ever because it sat really close to home. Everyone on the show is quite charming and fun to watch. Some of the Canadiana they found was particularly interesting for me. I have to give this show a 7.5 out of 10. It's a fun show and I think reality profit hunting fans will enjoy this especially if they're Canadian.