Like most people, I like a good bargain, and today I was looking in the window of a pawn shop. I never have bought anything at one though.
They look like they have some decent jewelry at good prices. The thing is though, how would I know if it’s legit. I can guess it’s most likely not stolen, why would a pawn shop risk fencing jewelry, but what if it’s fake.
I can examine the piece and see it says “18K” or whatever but so what? I mean I imagine it can’t be too hard to forge that.
What are your experiences with buying from pawn shops?
i don’t think I’ve ever bought anything at one. But, when circumstances demanded, I have sold a few things. I did once try to sell a set of pearls and they wouldn’t take them without some documentation of authenticity. Don’t know if that’s the standard these days or not, but I would have to figure all of the jewelry at this particular place was for real.
I’ve poked around in some pawn shops. Mostly, the merchandise is way overpriced. If I was an expert on jewelry, or tools, or whatever, maybe I could pick up something that was underpriced and turn a profit on it.
I don’t think pawn shops are a good source for bargains for the average buyer. Go to to a thrift shop, instead.
On the few occasions that I checked out pawn shops, EVERY THING I had a good idea as to its value was WAY overpriced as marked.
Never tried to buy anything, tho, so I have no idea how low they would go below the marked prices. But they’d have to start somewhere south of 50% of asking to even get to a neighborhood where haggling was worth it.
I worked in a large pawnshop for 5 years in college but that was 25 years ago. I seriously doubt that things have changed very much. I can tell you with 100% certainty that we did not try to sell fake jewelry. If we were unsure if jewelry was legit, we would do a scratch test on it (with the owner’s permission of course) to verify the gold content. We also had an electronic diamond tester so we could check those as well. Next to our display case of real jewelry, we had a case of the new fake stuff that we also sold. We made it very clear that the big shiny rock was just a piece of glass and that a stamp 18KHGE stood for Heavy Gold Electroplate. There was a reason that the rings in that case were $15.
Pawnshops are kind of like casinos, they don’t need to cheat because the math is always in their favor. We would offer someone 1/4 of the new price of their items (jewelry and guns would bring a premium) and if the items weren’t redeemed in the allotted time, we’d try to sell them for 1/2 of the new price. Note that the price tags always had higher prices on them because a pawnbroker (or just about any used merchandise dealer) would always take less than the advertised price. A lot of people wouldn’t understand this and would look in the store, get turned off by the price tags and just leave.
So, are there good deals to be found in pawnshops? Certainly. Lots of them in fact. There are a lot of not so good deals as well. You can’t really give everything that you take in pawn a thorough test so some stuff might not work as well as you’d like. Buyer beware and all that.
If you have any other questions, I’d be happy to see what I can dust off from the recesses of my mind.
The sort of stuff I’m interested in like electronics and computers are incredibly overpriced. (And the computer stuff very out of date.) At least 3 times their worth. Thrift stores and garages sales are much better deals.
I no longer stop at them when I’m out scrounging for something.
It depends on the pawn shop (which often depends on the area). In a small town where I used to live, the pawn shop was a great place to buy used stuff. In another small town I used to live in, the pawn shop sold overpriced junk.
A pawn shop in downtown Baltimore near where I used to work had tons of stolen stuff in it. Everyone in the area knew the pawn shop had a lot of stolen stuff. Even the cops knew. It wasn’t exactly a secret. The pawn shop wasn’t intentionally fencing, so legally they were off the hook. If a guy came in and tried to pawn something, the guy running the pawn shop doesn’t know if it is stolen or not. So he writes down the seller’s info, records the serial number on the item, etc. and places the item out for sale when it comes off of pawn. Most of the shops in the area didn’t bother to record serial numbers, so they had no way of proving that the item was theirs or if it was a similar item that just happened to be pawned.
I’ve bought some old tools at pawn shops and got a great deal, but then I know about tools and know if I’m buying something that is really worth the price or not. I don’t think I’d trust buying jewelry from one. I don’t know enough about jewelry to know what is good and what isn’t. You aren’t a jeweler either, and the guy running the pawn shop also likely isn’t a jeweler. Best case, you are dealing with someone like KRM who is at least trying to be fair. Worst case, the guy is either clueless or intentionally deceptive. Some of the stuff might be hideously over-priced for what it is really worth, and some of it might actually be worth more than what he is selling it for. If you have a friend who is a jeweler who can identify which items are good and which ones are crap then you can probably find some great deals. Otherwise, you are really taking your chances.
They can’t KNOWINGLY sell stolen stuff. But most people don’t 'fess up to the stuff being stolen. You know that some stolen stuff is going to slip through.
When we were burgled, the coppers told us to hit the local pawn shops and look for our stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of it was unidentifiable as ours. CDs, to be specific. Mr. K’s knife collection was stolen but we never found any of them locally.
Regarding stolen stuff: In Tulsa, the law was (and probably still is) that the first time that you take an item in pawn, you had to fill out a “fingerprint card” on it. This had a complete description of you and your item. It included your name, driver’s license number and your fingerprint. If you didn’t have proper ID, we couldn’t take your stuff. Every day, we would mail the cards to the Tulsa Police Department who would check the descriptions against their database of stolen goods. You couldn’t get your stuff back in the first 10 days of the pawn because TPD took that long to do their search. If TPD got a match, they would call us and put a “police hold” on the item and usually they’d just come get it from us. We were out whatever we had paid. That’s the cost of doing business, I guess. We’d also know to never take anything from you again.
Bottom line: we didn’t want stolen stuff. It’s immoral and a bad business model. Although, it did feel good when the rightful owners got their stuff back.
I’ve only been in them twice. Once to sell some electronic stuff that I didn’t want to pay to dispose of so anything I got was fine with me. They gave chicken scratch for it and I wasn’t suprised. I remember it because at the same time I was there a kid was unloading piece-by-piece an entire Yamaha rack system (receiver/amp/tapedeck/cdpalyer/speakers/cabinet). He gets the whole thing into the store and the guy working there asks him “How much did you want for it?”
The kid says “I paid about $600 so probably something like $400?” The guy tells him “I’ll give you $50.” The kid looked like he was going to cry.
The other time I was looking for a basic receiver/amp to run a pair of speakers in the garage. A brand new one at BestBuy was about $110. I figured a pawn shop would have old working units for a cheaper price. I found older units allright, from the 80s. With price tags of $95.
I never could figure out pawn shops (besides the fact they should be gold mine). From a customer point of view? What a rackett IMO.
They pay you pennies on the dollar for what somethings worth.
Even IFF you come back to get your pawned stuff, they make a damn nice profit on the processing fees and interest.
Or if they end up selling something that isnt reclaimed, they bought it for pennies on the dollar in the first place and are NOW selling it for at least what its REALLY worth, if not more. Talk about buying low and selling high.
IMO the only way you’ll find a real deal if it is some obscure item. Like say a couple thousand dollar backpack that looks like all the other couple hundred dollar backpacks. And now with the internet and ebay, I suspect your chances of finding hidden treasure are even more remote.
I still recall visiting one as a kid looking for a tape recorder. Their trashy old things that they offered no warranty or return on cost even MORE than a new one. And this was before the days of places like walmart where could get stuff like that dirt cheap.
Its worth it to go looking around on a weekly basis, but for the most part the goods are priced negatively, ie they priced something based on what its selling for on Ebay, but sooner or later if the item has not moved, you would think that the price should go down, if nothing else to free up space on the shelves and thats where you can snipe a pawnshop.
Buyer beware however, the quality of the item in question cannot be solely checked by visuals, I purchased a point and shoot camera that had a bad circuit board, and would make the camera fritz at certain times, they took it back and gave me the money , but two weeks later it was back on display waiting for someone else to buy it.
Probably the other way, the moment the items become pawnshop property and pass the monthly wait time for the cops, its most likely already been shopped out to camera stores , jewelry stores, and so forth. I dont think that the average jewelry store guy would bother wasting time going out on wild goose chases, while he would accept an appointent to appraise any specific item and get first crack at it.
I’ve gotten a couple of decent jewelry deals at a pawn shop (one in particular; the one that’s here in Cumberland isn’t worth setting foot in). I got a beautiful pearl and diamond necklace that looks like a designer piece and appraised at considerably more than twice what we paid for it. I also got a 14k gold rope chain to replace one that broke, that I keep a Tanzanite pendant on. Everywhere retail shop we checked, the chains that were solid gold were hideously expensive; the affordable ones were hollow ropes. Since I wear the pendant every single day, and even sleep in it (except for very dressy occasions when I wear the pearls and diamonds. . . ), we definitely wanted solid. The pawn shop had a considerably better price on solid 14k gold rope chains than retailers did. And since we bought the pearl necklace and the rope chain at the same time, we offered the guy a “bundle” price. He didn’t quite take what we offered, but the price we ended up with was about 15% less than it was marked.
You really need to know what you’re looking at, though. A lot of the stuff we looked at was over-priced.
I’ve filled up a CD continer full of $3 music CDs, and some of those became some of my favorite all time albums.
I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I go and look for cheap cds, movies, and misc equipment. I actually picked up a really nice playing pool cue for next to nothing.
I was in Key West and wanted to buy a dive watch. I saw a Seiko in a pawn shop. I paid 60 bucks for it. I went to Disney and the waiter in the Italian restaurant had the same watch. He said he paid 500 bucks.
In the same pawn shop we picked up a new in the package Nintendo game for approx. half price.
I know a guy who made a small business of buying golf clubs at pawn shops and selling them for profit.
A couple of weeks ago, NPR ran a piece on pawn shops running out of money due to the downturn in the economy. I don’t know if that’s widespread, but they made it sound like it. That may get you more dickering room at some shops. Pity I hate dickering, or I’d check it out.
Well eBay is good for something, but like with jewelry you can’t see it or touch it. You don’t even know if what’s in the picture is what you’re getting.
I agree. I used to work within a 2 block radius of 4 pawnshops, and I went by every once in a while. The prices were always crazy high, about like the price of some “oldtique” that a garage-sale operator thinks is a fantastic find and wants far too much $$ for.
), we definitely wanted solid. The pawn shop had a considerably better price on solid 14k gold rope chains than retailers did. And since we bought the pearl necklace and the rope chain at the same time, we offered the guy a “bundle” price. He didn’t quite take what we offered, but the price we ended up with was about 15% less than it was marked.