Over in CS folk are discussing the show Pawn Stars. I was hoping folk would be willing to share their experiences with pawn shops. I’ve been in a few (tho not in the last decade), and without exception was disappointed at what I saw as overpriced junk, and surly employees. Did I just go into the wrong stores, looking for the wrong stuff (usually guitars and PA/stereo equipment.)
I go into them all the time looking for silver coinage and also occasionally for tools. I’ve found some good deal there but you need to have an eye for the right deal and it takes some experience.
I tried to sell a computer at one once but they wanted no part of it at any price.
I pawned a few things in college. The right girl says yes to a date. 
I’d pawn my guitar or stereo to get a few bucks. I always managed to get it back. I almost lost my guitar and had to ask my mom for help. That was embarrassing. I Never pawned anything again. That was over 25 years ago.
They only give a fraction of the value. Back then, my guitar cost me $400. IIRC I’d get maybe $40 from the pawn. They could have easily sold it for $150.
1980’s prices. Today a similar Yamaha guitar (new) is almost $900.
I’ve bought. Well, hubby bought for me, but he took me in to see the stuff first, to make sure I’d be happy with it. . .
A couple of years ago, a Tanzanite pendant he bought me, which I wore on a gold rope chain, well, the chain broke. When he went into the local pawn shop looking for a rope chain the pendant would fit on, he saw a pearl and diamond necklace that he thought I would love. The pearl and diamond piece was priced at $350.00, and the gold rope was priced at $80.00. He offered them $400.00 for both pieces, and they made the deal. The pearl necklace has a chevron-style setting in front, with probably 14 diamond chips. The thing is, the gold holding the chevron in place is a ginormous chunk of gold, and I’m pretty sure that just the gold in that necklace is worth what he paid for it!
The thing with pawn shops, though, is you have to know what you’re shopping for. We saw lots of computer-type stuff, old, that was more expensive than what you’d pay for brand new. If you know what you’re looking for, and what you’re looking at, you can strike some good deals. He’s also gotten handguns for a decent price in pawn shops.
I once pawned a few pieces of jewelry and got eight bucks, which I used to buy gas to get to work. I just went into the first shop I saw, and have no idea what the stuff was worth.
I had a boyfriend who pawned his guitar and bought it back regularly. He would get about fifty bucks.
I pawned things a few times back in my younger days. I was freelance, and sometimes work was scarce or checks would take longer to show up then I might have liked. So I’d occasionally pawn some electronic equipment and whatnot to remain a little solvent until they did show up. No real interesting stories… of course, I always got far less than I would have liked, and I always got my items back.
Last year, I went through a dry spell waiting for two checks to show up that were taking way, way longer to arrive then they should have. I tried to pawn my Sony GV-D1000 mini dv player/viewer, which still sells used for around $700, but the pawn shop people didn’t know what it was and didn’t want to give me anything it. They didn’t even call in an expert like on Pawn Stars, the lazy bastards! I only tried the one place, and probably could have gone elsewhere, but never bothered. My checks came in shortly afterwards, and I survived.
Yeah, I guess my problem was that of the stuff I kew much about, I knew their prices were WAY out of whack. Which made me suspect similar for other things I knew less about such as jewelry.
I guess I’m just not much of a shopper tho, in that I tend not to shop for stuff unless I want something in particular, and then I’ll pay more to avoid time searching/haggling.
No.
Oh wow.
I’ll just echo that in my limited experience has been they won’t pay you crap for anything, they charge outrageous fees and interest, and if you are looking to buy, often the used crap costs almost as much as something new/better.
Sounds to me like a real money maker. Which I guess is why they are so common.
Thinking about it for a moment, IMO you might get treated fairly with jewelry, but that is probably because “real” jewelry stores have such a high markup (and some folks abhor the idea of used jewelry) that the pawn shop can afford to undercut them and still make a killing.
And, you might find a deal on something pretty obscure that they have no idea of the real value of.
To me, the business plan seems to focus on taking advantage of desperate sellers and clueless buyers.
Pretty much my assumption as well. Gotta admit none of the ones I went in were anywhere near as clean, well-staffed, and full of customers as the one on the show. Always made me wonder if - uh - something else weren’t going on as well.
When we were really, really broke, I took my jewelry to a pawn shop once. I got offered diddly squat, less than a hundred bucks for quite a nice collection of jewelry.
Later on, I’ve shopped at pawn shops, and while sometimes they might have some attractive merchandise, for the most part they are trying to sell used merchandise for new retail prices. So I’ve pretty much decided not to even set foot in a pawn shop, unless I’m very, very bored and need SOMETHING to do.
I’ve bought camera equipment and guitars at pawn shops, mostly when I was younger and didn’t understand the economics of how pawn shops work - namely, everyone but the proprietor gets screwed.
I bought a couple of CDs at a pawn shop once. I was replacing all my old cassette tapes and happened to be in there looking at stereo equipment (you never know what you might find) and noticed a couple of titles I needed on the CD rack. They were insanely cheap ($2-3 IIRC), so I snagged 'em.
I just recalled one of my pawn experiences.
Had never pawned anything before. Gathered up a handful of things that seemed pawnable to me. Go in. I have no doubt the owner could tell I was a newbie. I told him I had NO clue what the pawn rate was for this stuff, I certainly intended to get it back, and that I only needed XYZ dollars. So, could he give a quick idea of what he would pay for each item? No one else in the store besides another employee, so its not like I am taking up valuable time either. He said no problem at all, he would be happy to do it.
He does a quick look over each item and tells me not interested at all or he will give me x dollars for this, y dollars for that and so on and so on. Well, as I told him I only needed so much money. In my mind I ranked which things I would care the least about not loosing to the ones I would most care about loosing (in case things got financially worse or they accidentally sold, lost, or broke something). So, starting at least valuable (to me) I said let me pawn this, this , and this until I arrived at the amount I needed (and this was about 2/3 of the total number of items).
Well, for some reason, this caused him to flip his lid. He went from majorly nice guy to the biggest fucking asshole on the planet. If I hadnt been caught so much by surprise I would have chewed his ass out right back. I guess I did some kind of pawn shop faux paux that was the equivalent of “your mother sucks your dick”. Not only did he go to 11 on the dick dial, he had NO interest in pawning what I suggested, or pawning some other mix, or finally even just letting me pawn everything he had expressed interest in.
So, I leave that shop and hit another one. Told em the story, they went WTF?, gave me the low down on what they would give for what, I pawned some of it and everyone was happy. And I did get the stuff back.
In college my girlfriend and I did that. We’d be low on rent- pawn the guitar (I think we got 100ish buck) pay rent, buy the guitar back after the first pay check of the month. We had to do this atleast three times.
I have bought a (very few) items at pawn shops. As others have said, i generally find their prices to be truly insane, asking new prices for beat-up old junk. Still, I have occasionally found something that i wanted, and that was priced reasonably.
I’ve never been desperate enough to pawn something i owned.
So I am not sure how this would work. You’d sell it for $100, and then buy it back for how much? The full retail they would charge someone else? Less? What?
I know some people who get used Xbox games for $10 at a local pawn shop. They say it’s a better price than at GameStop.
While fishing in a mining strip pit one day, I found a ring case. Small and square with green velvet. Picked it up thinking NFW was there gonna be a ring in there. Turned out to be a small plain wedding band. Since I didn’t need the ring, I took it to a pawn shop, determined to take whatever they offered me. It probably wasn’t worth $50 and they gave me $10 for it, so we were both happy. I’d rather have known the story behind how it ended up there than to have had the cash.