Ever wonder if the junk at home might actually be worth something? Well, according to the hosts of the latest A&E series Barter Kings, they just might.

The premise of the show is simple – post an item online (start small, and cheap) for trade and wait for a potential buyer. With plenty of persuasion and a little bit of luck, you’ll trade in your item for something of a higher value. Follow that with a “trade string” of more items, each time “trading up,” and you’ll finally lay hands on the prized possession you had coveted but cannot afford.

The age-old trade of bartering is given a new lease of life on reality TV, thanks to the growing interest from a recent surge of pawning and trading shows. Unlike the other incarnations out there, in Barter Kings, you’d never get to smell cash. This is pure unadulterated item-to-item exchange; from the days when money don’t matter and a fair exchange is honoured.

A&E says the combined worth of barter transactions among North American companies in 2008 amounted to US$16 billion. That’s a lot of dough for junk that’s otherwise rotting away at home – no wonder the degree of interest. Executive Producers Drew Brown and Bob Gillan of Brownstone Entertainment explain the premise for the show.

“We were intrigued with the concept of people who started with something small and traded up incrementally until they got to something big and valuable, like the story about the guy who traded from a paper clip to a house, or the California teen who traded a cellphone all the way up to a Porsche. We started researching and realised that the bartering section of Craigslist was booming. So we started a search for the best barterers who do this sort of ‘trading up’ in real life.”

The search yielded the duo of Steve McHugh, who took to bartering after being fired as a car salesman; and Antonio Palazzola, the son of a junkyard man, and who grew up with unwanted items all his life.

At the interview, McHugh assures me that the show is real and truly organic. The crew, he says, follow him and Palazzola all week.

“The fun and excitement of shooting this series is that we don’t know what’s going to happen next!” exclaims Gillan. “When Steve and Antonio post their items in the bartering section of Craigslist we have no idea what sort of responses they’ll get. We help them sift through the many offers, and they use their expertise in deciding which item is the perfect one that will get them to the next level.”

Craigslist, a well-known online site where one trades or sells anything from used clothes to real estate, would feature regularly as a trigger to the bartering process. Consider the various items that go through the hands of McHugh and Palazzola in a typical trade string and one immediately recognises that this is no child’s play.

Steve’s Trade String in episode One: Framed Elvis Gold Records (US$250) => Mini Dirt Bike (US$1,200) => Bank Safe (US$3,000) => 1970 Monte Carlo (US$4,500) => Chopper Motorcycle (US$6,000) => Power Boat (US$8,000)

The chemistry between Palazzola and McHugh is evident. McHugh explains that they were both friends and business partners prior to the show. Both EPs remark that while the ideal casting was already a bonus, receiving a positive endorsement from the A&E network was truly the icing on the cake.

“They (A&E) strive for authenticity in their programming, and they achieve that by allowing us as producers to simply capture the real stories of Steve and Antonio as they barter and trade up each week. Both Drew and I are grateful that A&E quickly saw that the fantastic friendship between Steve and Antonio is a key ingredient in our show. They have given the series and our cast extra promotion and key timeslots that don’t always happen for new shows,” says Gillan.

The series, which has garnered a Tuesday 9pm primetime slot in its June 2012 premiere, has been well received. McHugh gleefully tells me how the show averages the top three of four positions on Wednesday nights (current run), but beyond the positive ratings, he is also excited by the community of fans that has emerged.

“The show’s been a hit with dads my age (McHugh is 40) and their 5 – 10 year-old kids that watch the show religiously,” McHugh says, with a laugh. “In Canada and in London (also), I’m 95 percent sure that we have a very big market there.”

Gillan and Brown explain that “the series has gained an increasingly passionate fan-base from the very beginning. On Twitter, Barter Kings fans show their love of Steve and Antonio’s humour and bartering skills, as well as a desire to go out and start trading up themselves.”

The A&E Barter Kings Facebook page has become quite the trading space for loyal fans; many hoping to replicate the success of the show’s hosts. An online trading competition also took place in June, empowering loyal Barter fans to “duel” each other for an ultimate catch.

The show’s ability to resonate with audiences, as the EPs put it, is its experiential nature.

“One of the key reasons for the success of our show is that our audience can actually do what our barter kings do themselves. Everyone has stuff they don’t want, and wants stuff they don’t have. All they need to do is incrementally trade up to a slightly more valuable item. Over time, and after several trades, they too have the ability to go from a used laptop to a Ford F150 lifted truck!”

On a more sombre note, the plausibility of the viewer adopting such a trade may well be prompted by economic realities.

“Everybody knows we’re in recession,” laments McHugh. “Not many people have cash and if they have it, they don’t want to spend it. About 5-7 years ago, people were really starting to accumulate things. They bought things they didn’t need. All these stuff are lying around. It’s like cash in the bank.”

Hence, beyond a “how-to” of bartering, the show brings to light the plight of many cash-strapped people in need of a break.

“I probably have a hundred emails from charities, from disabled people, from single mothers and fathers. They want me to fly to their state and barter for them because they are in a bad spot and that breaks my heart,” says McHugh, who adds that he makes it a point to read and respond to every single email he receives.

An interesting, though unintended development in the show’s narrative must be the increased awareness of Tourette Syndrome, after it was revealed in the pilot that Palazzola has Tourette’s. This revelation, plus the producers’ willingness to allow it on-camera, is rare in the business.

“It kind of came out. We were afraid of it (at first) because we didn’t know how the public would take it,” explains McHugh. “(But) it was received very well and Antonio decided at that point not to try to hide it and it ended up being a great thing and helped a lot of people.”

However, McHugh is quick to point out this is not a crusade for Tourette’s and the show remains on course about bartering.

“There’s a lot of people out there who don’t understand the actual syndrome,” says McHugh. “We’re not the saviours. We’re not pretending we can change it or help it, but the few people we’ve come into contact so far, we’ve had great feedback with what the show has done for their self esteem and confidence. That part of the show to me is rewarding.”

For all the seriousness, Barter Kings provides plenty of laughs. McHugh and Palazzola demonstrate a certain ease and humour in each deal. In one episode, McHugh mentions a guitar brand called the Nippon Gakki to Palazzola, and without giving too much away, let’s just say the issue has taken on such a hilarious turn that the brand name now has a life of its own in Barter vocabulary. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Watch the show.