It set early ratings records, made minor celebrities of its cast, and eventually spawned several spinoffs. Like any so-called "reality" TV show, however, there's a certain amount of production staging involved – sadly, the cast are not all natural masters of the one-liner pun — to say nothing of the per episode appearance fee each regular personality receives as part of their contract.
The show is structured to highlight three auctions per episode and rarely deviates from that model, which inevitably means some units never make it onto the show and the audience has no way of knowing if the value of those unseen units winds up in the final tallies at the end of each episode. Additionally, the show's method of calculating who makes or loses money is based solely on the valuation provided by the bidders themselves or the appraisers visited for specialty pieces, compared against their winning bid. Audiences find this method suspect, to say the least, leading to the emergence of a popular meme asking for a show about the "Storage Wars" buyers selling their appraised items on "Pawn Stars."
Nevertheless, we scrutinized all 14 seasons of the OG series and determined — based solely on what "Storage Wars" allows us to see — where each featured cast member ranks, from least to most successful.
25. Mark Balelo
When Mark Balelo showed up for the first time in Episode 6 of Season 2, auctioneer Dan Dotson identified him as someone who's frequented auctions in the past and likes to throw a lot of money around. That was an understatement. Balelo — or "Rico Suavé" as regular buyer Brandi Passante dubbed him — dropped $9,375 on five units that day, seemingly just because he wanted to prove he could. He got into bidding wars with three of the regular "Storage Wars" cast members, jumped bids by $500 or more at a time, and literally flashed his wad of cash. He was a polarizing figure on par with Dave Hester himself.
Unfortunately, producers didn't air any talking head interviews with him or follow the progress of his finds, so we have no idea if he made any money for his trouble. When featured more traditionally in future episodes, Balelo sadly lost more money than he spent. Through three seasons, he only appeared on eight episodes and was only shown valuing his auction buys in four of them. He lost $105, then $700, then $1,450. When he finally turned a profit in Season 4, the $1,560 he earned still left him with a $695 deficit overall. That was his last appearance on the show, and it aired two and a half months after Balelo, having endured several offscreen troubles, died by suicide in February 2013.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
24. Ivy Calvin Jr.
Appearing frequently in later seasons with his father Ivy Calvin Sr., Junior and his brother Isaiah are mostly literally brought along to do the heavy lifting. They help sort through the units, pack up the trucks, and unload the goods back at the Calvins' thrift store, Grandma's Attic, in Palmdale, California. And they provide a lot of good-natured familial ribbing for our entertainment. It's one of the more wholesome and uplifting aspects of the show, actually — the strong family bonds featured between parents and children — showing them the ropes, teaching them the business, and equipping them with unique skills and knowledge to take into adulthood.
Occasionally, though, the kids start to think they know more than their more experienced parents. In the Season 13 episode "Fears of a Clown" Junior talks up his "young knowledge" over his dad's "old knowledge," prompting the senior Calvin to propose a bet. Whoever earns the most gets his locker loaded by the loser. Ivy Sr. made $707 on his unit, while "Pops," as Ivy Jr. is sometimes called, only netted $47. That was the only featured purchase for him so far in the series, too — or, at least the only one he paid for and got to keep the profit from himself — so it seems like Junior still has some learning to do from his dad.
23. Mavrick Von Haug
Even though he only showed up in a couple episodes from Seasons 7 and 8, which together spanned 2015, Mavrick Von Haug made an impression. Say what you will, but it's hard to forget someone who's had the entire left side of their face tattooed.
His first appearance in the Season 7 episode "What Cowboy Dreams May Come" garnered little in the way of profit — he scrounged up an extra $50 in value for the items going on his store shelves — but generated a lot of notice from the likes of series regulars Ivy Calvin and Dave Hester. That notice, plus the visit to his shop near the end of the episode and the introduction of his wife Gwen (also, Gwen's chest tattoo of his name) in the show's epilogue made it seem like Von Haug might be around for a while, but that wasn't the case.
He scored a tidy sum of $585 in the middle third of Season 8 with a spiral wheel to help pan for gold, then was never seen again. Luckily, he and Gwen are both fitness experts, athletes, and champion bodybuilders, because $635 made off storage finds isn't going to pay the bills. Although, Von Haug's problems extend beyond mediocre luck in "Storage Wars." In fall of 2022, he was arrested and charged with suspicion of manufacturing assault weapons.
22. The Harris Brothers
Mark and Matt Harris are identical twins and native Angelinos who own a celebrity VIP gift bag creation and branding business, an entrepreneurial venture that could only exist in Southern California. They first appeared on the show as expert appraisers of Hollywood memorabilia in the Season 3 episode "May the Vaults be with You" in 2012. Come March of 2013, however, they showed up as buyers on the episode "The Kook, the Chief, his Son, and the Brothers," dubbing themselves the "Kings of Swag" in misguided defiance of the hard and fast rule to never give yourself a nickname.
The nattily dressed pair wound up buying a visually unappealing unit for the rock-bottom price of $45 and turned it into $885 when, in addition to its other few worthwhile items, the brothers found an antique olive press. In addition, their semi-clueless sibling banter-slash-bickering provided a lot of comic relief. Sadly, although they appeared in five more episodes over the course of the fourth season looking snazzy and working on their bidding gimmick, they were never shown acquiring another locker and quietly fell away from the broadcast.
21. Artie and Shannon
Very little is known of Artie and Shannon of Season 8 — not even Artie's last name. They first appeared midway through Season 8 in the episode "An Auction too Far," in which a disappointing trip to a Santa Ana storage facility is followed up by a barely improved visit to one in Hawaiian Gardens. Shannon appeared in a couple talking head interviews and was identified as Shannon Dahlmeier, but when Artie showed up in his own talking head spot, his surname was not provided.
The couple who in conversation with auctioneer Dan Dotson revealed that they have been dating long term but live in separate cities, managed to snag the one clean, uncluttered locker for a total of $500. The cache of prop items, stunt bricks, and breakaway cinder blocks inside netted them a profit of $980. They showed up again several episodes later in "Buys and Dolls," eking out a profit of $40 after losing a $500 coin flip.
20. Jenny Grumbles
Visiting her former "Storage Wars: Texas" cohort Mary Padian for the Season 12 premiere of the original California series, Jenny Grumbles didn't waste any time showing her keen eye for a promising locker. The two friends, both known for refurbishing and repurposing furniture, went in together on a storage unit in the Menifee, California, episode "The Jenny, the Baker, the Prosthetics Maker." They wound up purchasing a promising unit stuffed full of older items (their wheelhouse) for $700 and walked away sharing the proceeds of a $2,255 haul.
Sadly, it was Grumbles' only appearance on any of the 14 seasons of the original series, but her bubbly, sunny personality made it clear why she's such a favorite on the Texas spinoff, and her earnings of $1,127.50 in a single day make it clear she's a savvy businesswoman who knows her stuff. She can hold her own and make the big bucks.
19. Jarrod Schulz on his own
One half of the former power couple owners of the Now & Then Thrift Store in Orange, California, Jarrod Schulz and his longtime life partner Brandi Passante spent the first 12 seasons of "Storage Wars" winning and losing at auctions together. After filming for that 12th season wrapped, however, the two split up and briefly tried to make a go of it in Season 13 as single bidders. This didn't work out too well for Schulz, who seemed to be holding a bit of a grudge in the season premiere "Santanas Are Coming" and intended to bid against his ex no matter what.
In addition to the occasional side bet that transpired over prior seasons, Schulz bidding as a sole entity unto himself brought in a measly $1,335 across all seasons, with him only netting $60 in his final run through Season 13. His departure from the show left Passante to conquer on her own merits.
18. Nabila Haniss
Nabila Haniss' addition to the show in Season 2 was a breath of fresh air. The first season of "Storage Wars" had a lot going for it — most pertinently, a strong, positive audience response compared with very low production values. In layman's terms, the show generated a lot more cash than it cost to make. What the first season didn't have a lot of, however, was women. Aside from main cast member Brandi Passante and auctioneer Laura Dotson, the show was all dudes posturing to show off which one has the biggest wallet.
Haniss came in as a serious buyer without a serious ego and managed to make a respectable $1,560 over the course of her tenure on the show, encompassing four featured lockers purchased over the course of eight episodes across Season 2, 3, and 4. She was a capable buyer with a good eye and plenty of smiles to go around, but she was also a shark and could be polarizing since her only concern was the money to be made.
Before the advent of the show or Haniss' participation in it, she purchased a storage unit's contents for $2,775, realized the locker had belonged to famous face and heiress Paris Hilton, and sold it for $10 million to someone who then exposed the contents for profit. She was sued for her trouble, but the legal action didn't seem to slow her down. Despite not appearing on the show since the fourth season, she's still a regular at storage auctions and still dealing with the occasional legal snafu. She just keeps it off the air.
To be continued in Part 2....
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