Don't kid yourself about American Pickers. It is not a documentary. Documentaries record events from the observer's point of view. Documentaries don't create situations or contrive events, drama or outcomes. Pickers is purely produced entertainment.
Nothing in episodic television makes it onto the screen by accident. These types of shows have months or weeks of preproduction staff meetings and prep. Ideas are pitched, outlines get written, and network executives give the producers "notes" (feedback) at various stages about what they want. Researchers find the people/places/subject matter, etc.
The level of detail they plan is probably right down to the major picks on each show. With a deadline to keep and network executives to please, I have no doubt the producers have it down to a science.
Look at it this way: Imagine your whole story arc is about scoring a mint condition Hopalong Cassidy Rollfast... would you leave the outcome up to chance when the stakes are so high?
As far as the actual shooting goes, that of course is planned as much as possible because it costs thousands a day to be on location (even for basic cable). Most production companies usually have a stable of camera operators, sound technicians and others to hire in various parts of the country, but they will try not to hire anyone who's not local to the shoot location because then you have to start paying per diem and lodging and so forth.
I'm not a religious viewer of the show but they do seem to have at least on "big pick" each outing. This is the pick that gets teased early in the episode and they drag on the suspense throughout that act of the show. These major picks are certainly known well in advance, including price and haggling points.
The minor picks are probably chosen from a long categorical list of options but are mostly spontaneous. This is where the producers give discretion to Mike and Frank of course, because they're the experts. But you have to have the major pick planned because it is the focus of the whole story arc. Sometimes the major pick doesn't pan out but I would argue that might also be planned.
They know how much they are going to pay. One trick they might use is to stick to a certain price on camera, but the producers will kick the difference or part of the difference to the seller. In the business, this is called an honorarium. When I was in the TV business it was typically not more than $500 (and even that was high).
I left the business long before this genre of programming (Pickers, Pawnstars, etc.), so maybe it's higher now. Although I'd be surprised if it's more than $1000 on any item but on this show. In any event it could mean all the difference to the seller. Point is they definitely have the sellers committed to a price ahead of time (as much as possible) on the major picks because if a seller doesn't play ball it could waste a whole day of shooting.
Do they have a "prop department" of bogus picks? I wouldn't be surprised. Even if Mike and Frank don't like it, that's the way TV executives think. They certainly aren't above doing that. Actually, they really don't owe the viewers honesty... this is all just make believe.
Dialogue is the least produced thing on this show. Except for the phone calls with Danielle, I think it's pretty much off the cuff. The phone calls and Danielle's time on scene are there to set it up and wrap it up. To that degree they know what they're going to say, but they aren't reading lines. They may get fed a line from the director if he wants something to sound a certain way or hit a certain beat but they aren't studying scripts like a film actor.
The postproduction is much the same. This is when the storyline really gets tuned. The editors do a rough cut, it gets sent to network, network gives notes, then they go to finer and finer cuts (probably three stages of this) until the final cut of each show.
I don't watch much "reality" TV and I haven't for years. It ruins it when you know how the sausage is made.
