08/05/2012
An episode of the reality series, “Picked Off,” featuring The Old Place in Gautier, also known as La Maison Gautier, will air Wednesday night.
The show airs on the History Channel at 9 p.m., and is the fifth episode of the competition series.
Four teams of amateur pickers compete in a winner-take-all elimination, hoping to turn $100 into valuable objects and a $10,000 grand prize. Antiques experts and brothers, Ethan and Todd Merrill, judge the market value of the items.
Wednesday’s episode will show “one team picking up an object that blows everyone away, impressing the judges,” Susan Werbe of New York, vice president of historical programming for History, confirmed.
“And, in the freestyle round, both finalists run into trouble and are left scrambling to save potentially disastrous situations,” Werbe said.
“Also, these items are online for auction,” Werbe said.
Cineflix Production crews filmed the Gautier episode in March 2011 at The Old Place, which also was the site of the first Gautier Antiques Fair. The four teams moved from vendor to vendor in search of treasures while others visited Gautier’s first fair.
When in Jackson County producing the show, the film crews were based at the former Cumbest Sawmill on Miss. 613 in Cumbest Bluff. Many areas of the property, owned by Mark Cumbest, broker/owner of Cumbest Realty, and his family, served as backdrops for the show.
The large weathered barn, which was painted red by the production company, played a significant part in the episodes.
“The south end of the barn was the contestant holding area and north of that was the elimination barn where the contestants were told about their picks,” Cumbest said.
The “Picked Off” logo was painted on the Cumbest Sawmill water tank.
The sawmill, one of the last remaining sawmills of its type, was started by Roy Cumbest in 1939 and upon his death, his three sons, Lum, Elvis and Hillard Cumbest, took over the operation until their retirements in 1998.
The sawmill is featured at the beginning and end of each episode, Cumbest said.
The production crew stored its camera, and video and audio equipment in the former sawmill office.
Near the end of production, Cumbest was asked to interview for a web exclusive video for www.history.com about the history of the sawmill, the Cumbest family, which settled in Jackson County as early as the 1720s, and about the general area.
Cumbest said he was given an opportunity to tell of the benefits and attractions of people moving into Jackson County.
“It’s always on the tip of my tongue to relate the positives of what the community and the county have to offer,” Cumbest said.
