With us it varies. Some experts we call in work for a base fee, some for a percentage if we buy, some for a chance to buy in their fields (in which case we get a percentage) – and some do indeed do it for free. For a chance to see things they may not ever see otherwise. We have a customer who is a militaria expert; he can identify and value almost anything. What he wants is uniforms. For a shot at any uniforms that come in, he’ll “donate” his time to identify the medals and buttons and other things that come through the door.
Does he evaluate the uniforms he could potentially buy? I want to know how you would prevent a “watermelon sword” incident. (http://www.current.org/prog/prog007ars.html)
After watching American Chopper, Monster Garage, and that Boyd Coddington vehicle, I figured out the in-shop melodrama is done mostly for the television audience.
The Three Balls tradition are a reference to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of pawnbrokers. Nicholas lore has a story of secretly giving sacks of gold to the three daughters of a poor family, so the girls could have dowrys. His connection to pawnbrokers comes from a miracle story after St. Nicholas’s death.
There are still newspaper classified ads. I, too, am amazed at how many people take a lot less than they expected, without even thinking of trying another way. If I had something that was appraised at $5000 at auction, and Rick’s best offer was $2500, I’d at least take it away and put an ad in the paper for maybe $4000 or so. If I couldn’t sell it for that, then go back to Rick.
The way we avoid it where I work is we don’t go on TV. And when we do attend “ID Days” at historical societies and the like, we go out of our region and tell the people up front we don’t really want them as clients - we give them the basic information they need to deal with whoever is local and get treated fairly. We require the same with experts we bring into our shop; a sort of “standards and practices” to keep things on the up and up.
Antiques Roadshow ------- some day do a legal search on their experts; you will find a few “rap sheets” alonmg the road. It goes, in part, with the territory but its one of the reasons I don’t watch any of those shows very often.
Having just come back from the CES in Las Vegas, we decided to head over to Gold and Silver this past weekend. They literally have a line out the door to visit the shop with a bouncer, which is when we were there. Chumlee was there and he did not seem at all dumb in reality versus how he is shown on the show. He stated that a huge portion of their sales are through eBay, and most of their inventory is small and expensive merchandise (i.e. jewelry). As you might guess, they sell a lot of T-shirts and shot glasses as a result of the success of the show.
In answer to ‘why keep Chumlee around’, he said that they often work 70+ hour weeks since the shop is open 24 hours, and they clearly need him for those extended shifts if Rick, the Old Man, and Big Hoss want some time off. And really, even if he is ‘dumb’, if he’s honest, who cares? Don’t let him buy anything when you’re not supervising, and place a minimum on stuff that’s sold so he knows how low to let someone bargain him, then a trained monkey could do the job.
They do keep a few choice antiques around that are ‘not for sale’ in the shop - three Olympic medals, a Grammy, and a boxing heavyweight title belt were of particular note, along with several old guns. What surprised me was that they are NOT an FFL unlike many pawn shops in Nevada, so they can only buy and resell antique guns, and not modern firearms. That strikes me as a bad business decision on their part given their popularity and the relative commonness of pawned guns in other Nevada pawn shops I’ve visited.
As far as the experts they use, I would imagine many are doing it for free to get the exposure on TV. Wouldn’t you want to be known as the ‘firearms expert’ or ‘armor expert’ from Pawn Stars if you were in that business? I can’t think of a better way to exploit your expertise. Often when it’s a gun question, they go to The Gun Store, which is also free advertising for that business (which already has hundreds of ‘shoot a live submachine gun’ ads on billboards, taxis, etc. throughout town.
“Watermelon sword?” 
There’s a link posted up thread that very clearly explains what it is. Post 42, actually.
OLD TAYLOR Whiskey
I hope Rick has better sense than to sell that Prohibition Era bottle of Old Taylor. I am not even sure he should have bought it from the man. Yes, it was in it’s original package, and as far as I could tell the bond / seal / paper label across the cap was intact. However, federal laws say that Rick needs a liquor license, and to pay Federal Liquor Tax on even the re-sale of the booze. This may apply to the old man selling it, but I am not sure about that.
Anyone knowing something different please post a reply.
I’ve seen the show and was wondering about this - is it 10% annualized, or are they actually collecting 10% for every month that goes by? I got the feeling it was the latter. If so, are there not laws to prevent someone charging over 120% p.a. on a loan?
I think a lot of people want to sell because they need (or want) the money immediatly. It’s easy to put the item on EBay, or take your chances at an auction, but the pawn shop gives you cash on the spot. A lot of the items seen on the show probably aren’t sold at the shop directly, but since they have the connections to assess and restore these products, it would seem likely they have the connections to sell them as well.
I see other posters have said that he does appear smarter in person.
Frankly, Chumlee is to the Pawn Brokers what Curly was to The Three Stooges. He is by far the most entertaining one to watch. Corey is outright boring, The Old Man is too cranky and Rick is all business.
They have a ton of normal everyday stuff at their shop, but what you see on the TV show is only the best of the best. I browse their Ebay store quite a bit and there’s nothing fancy there most of the time.
Wow, their eBay site is utter crap. Not only is the stuff garbage, they should ream themselves out for even attempting to sell it. They should make an episode about how bad their crap is.
Did anyone see the episode recently where the guy just flipped out when Rick told him that his “rare French statue” was a fake? It even had “Made in the U.S.A.” stamped on it! The guy just started screaming and swearing and one of the security guards started to come over. It was hysterical!
Or this one?
“This is an INSULT to the Pez community!”
I have a feeling this happens a lot. When they interview the customer outside and the customer is thinking X, I think a lot of them are insulted when they get 1/10th or 1/3 of X. In one of the early episodes, a lady wanted like a couple of hundred for a bell, but she got like 6k. I think that’s extremely rare.
Hint: If you’re really looking to get full value big bucks out of an item, you do not bring it to a pawn shop.
At the store where I worked, it was 120% per year. Many stores were 240%. The reason that they are legal is that technically, they are a pawn and not a loan. No where on our paperwork was the word “loan” mentioned. We were still regulated by the Oklahoma Department of Consumer Credit.
They use auctions. In the episode with the old Belgian motorcycle they mention that that’s where it’s headed.
Or thanking Rick (et al.) for his time and asking the expert to “tell me more about these auction thingies”.
CMC fnord!
Oh sure, you laugh now. But when the PEZ army comes after you with these you won’t be laughing, well, when the sugar rush wears off!
