Chumlee in Pawn Stars

I strongly disagree with viewpoint that the show is staged although I can almost understand why other people might see it that way. It was a very real pawn shop that attracted enough attention to lead to a popular TV show. What you see today is heavily edited but the people are real. It attracts all kinds of eccentric customers with odd things but that is mainly because of the TV fame.

‘Staged’ to me would mean that they get actors to bring in unusual things and go through a rehearsed script and no actual money changes hands other than the appearance fees. I truly do not believe that is the case with Pawn Stars. They select the most interesting items for the most profit value to show on TV and they do not always get them by any stretch.

My family owned a pawn shop for many years and my father was an expert at it especially with firearms and Native American artifacts. We got some extremely weird and valuable things that we have to this day out of the selection. You would call bullshit too if you heard that we bought one of the only known examples of a prehistoric Australian aboriginal tool in perfect shape or a giant ancient shark’s tooth or a Tomahawk used at the battle of Little Big Horn. That is only a few examples. People come up with odd things that are both historic and valuable even in the oddest places.

All of that showed up in a small town in Louisiana and later checked out with experts for thousands of dollars in profit each. Let’s not mention the drug dealers that wore tens of thousands of dollars of braided gold chains as proof of currency yet needed to pawn it over and over whenever they needed a loan for a few thousand dollars to cover their finances.

Pawn shops are not glamorous by any stretch of the imagination but Pawn Stars checks out fine with my experience as long as you account for the editing and production values. They don’t want to show the dirtier side of the pawn business but the buy side is real as long as you keep in mind that they have lots of fame and resources to help them.

As opposed to a check. They can take their money right to the casino.

…except for Big Hoss; can’t stand him.

Certainly the office scenes are all staged. But still, the Old Man says “Chumlee, you’re an idiot” as if he’s had years of practice.

it’s really annoying the way he calls customers “man” all the time, no matter their age. Or gender, for that matter.

The guy who helps with automobile estimates… I think it is Kounts Kustom. Big guy who is always dressed in black. Anybody know why he wears that huge head band? Does he have F*** Y** tattooed on his forehead? It can’t be that comfortable in the LV heat.

Balding is my guess, just like Steve Van Zandt. This shot makes it look like it’s all up front.

Breaking news seems to be that Chumlee’s cutie on the night shift just got fired because of her past as a SuicideGirl.

There are folks who’d buy it quite happily–they just took it to the wrong store. They needed to be at Obscura here in New York. Unless Mike and/or Evan are Catholic, I doubt they’d be bothered and the clients would gobble it up. (On the other hand, I do recall them being unwilling to buy some strange tribal artifact that was some sort of Bad JuJu.)

What never ceases to amaze me are the people who fail to understand that the pawn shop (and Obscura, and every other show that involves a business that buys and sells items) is a business, and is in it to make money. Yes, we all heard the appraiser give an estimate of $5,000. No, the pawn shop is not going to give you $5,000 for it. What you are getting is the convenience of cash in your hand right now–no need to market the item, no need to find a buyer. What the pawn shop is getting is the opportunity to resell your doodad–at a profit. If they pay you market for it, where are they going to find that profit? People can’t seem to understand this.

Er… what’s a “SuicideGirl”?

Google it, but not from work. :stuck_out_tongue:

Basically, nude shots of tattooed women.

Or Loved to Death in San Fran.

:stuck_out_tongue:

I’m not saying he’s small or anything, but Big Hoss has lost a lot of weight since the show started.

He got the surgery.

Per the article Sampiro linked to:

They didn’t make that kind of money before the show, they were just succesful. The article talks about the shop staff quadrupling since the show started, indicating the Harrisons hit a gold mine by going on air, as expected.

It should be no mystery to anyone that some of what we see (and hear) has been produced and edited. So what?!? If you want a pure taste of reality then live your own lives! Pawn Stars is entertaining. It also provides nuggets of information, that, more than once, have caused me to want to investigate further. Whatever caused some of you to begin watching it in the first place…it sounds like the honeymoon is over. Turn the page/channel. Walking away is better than staying in a bitter relationship.

I think they did stop, two and a half years ago when the last post was made on this thread.

This thread’s pretty old - let me call my friend who’s an expert on Pawn Stars threads.

An English friend of mine did a Western US trip a couple of years ago and stopped into that pawn shop in Las Vegas. He likes the show but was disappointed that no one on the show was in the store at the time. Said there’s an amazing variety of Pawn Stars T-shirts for sale there.

I have no problem with that. I just know that the expert will agree with me that this thread is priceless.