I got a good price on a TV/VCR/DVD combo at an office supply store.
$100 less than Kmart.
So, look around.
Unusual places carry consumer electronics, often at discount.
Yeah, but was the $100 savings worth being pounded in the ass by the Gimp?
The Gimp works for the guys at Office Depot now?
I worked in a pawnshop for 5 years when I was in college. What we tried to do was loan someone 1/4th of the retail value of the item new. If they picked it up, we charged 10%/month interest. (Why yes, that is 120%/year, thanks for asking) If they hadn’t picked up their item in 2 months or had paid the interest on it to make it current, we would try to sell it for twice what we had in it. To do that, we had to mark things about 3/4ths of the original retail price. That’s why most people are put off by the high prices that they see. When someone says something about how much stuff would cost, we would always tell them that we would take less. The only exception was brand new merchandise. There was no negotiating on it but that might have been peculiar to our store.
Would I buy a TV from a pawnshop? I did 25 years ago. It was a 1975 model and it only died a few years ago. I also bought one about 3 years ago to go in my son’s room. I think I paid about $30 for it.
The great finds at pawn shops died with the advent of the public using the Internet to reseach products - and interest in the products.
I used to find many a cool electronic instrument for a damn good price in the 80’s. Old Man Pawn Shop Owner had no idea what a drum machine was, but he bought it off a guy for $10 and sold it to me for $30.
Now, he knows he can buy it for $10 and put a $190+ price on it “because that’s what they sell for on ebay”.
Humbug!
One thing about pawn shops, they’re notoriously egalitarian. There is a story about a Raja who found himself in financial straits and had to pawn a famous diamond, known as the ‘Star of the Desert’. The pawn broker examined the gem, shook his head, and offered 500 rupee. The enraged Raja cried out
“This is an insult, it cost me a million to aquire this diamond, and the lives of forty men! Who are you to offer such a pittance to me, me, your Raja?!”
The pawn broker shrugged and softly sung
“When you wish to pawn a star…makes no difference who you are.”
This, right here, is why the SDMB needs a puking smiley. :mad: 
Hmm. It’s strange— as though I saw Bosda’s name and then didn’t quite bother to read what he’d actually typed.
(Although I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have a sex dungeon in the back of Office Depot; there’s obviously plenty of space not occupied by merchandise, judging from the multiple times I’ve given an item card to one of their employees to go fetch me some piece of equipment and had them return to say “duhhhh… we’re out of those! I don’t know why there’s ten cards still on display for it!”)
I went looking for a cheapish, newish TV a couple years ago. We sort of collect DVDs and I love watching movies in bed when I can’t sleep, so I wanted a nice-ish screen for our bedroom. I had almost no free cash to spend, so I was hoping to find something at a pawn shop or second hand store. What I found was that the TVs were invariably way more expensive than I imagined paying for a used piece of modern electronic equipment. It’s not like older TVs that were major appliances and had their own repair guys that came out to your house and stayed in great working condition for years. If they’re in working condition they’re not likely to stay cheap at a pawn shop long, just like it wouldn’t last long at a yard sale. So they mark up the price, and what I couldn’t understand, was if I was only going to be saving twenty or thirty bucks, why wouldn’t I just save a little longer and buy one with a warranty and from a store with an exchange policy?
Anyway, I came across a coupon for a major department store that gave me a 20% discount on any single purchase over $100, and used it on a major holiday weekend when TVs were drastically on sale to begin with. I ended up getting what seemed to me an absurdly large JVC TV (29" I think) for $89–in the end, cheaper than a used pawn shop TV anyway, and way below your budget. I’m pretty sure you can find a very nice TV for +/- $250 any day of the year, and significantly less if you’re willing to go shopping on New Year’s Day or some other big sale weekend.
I thought The Gimp joined the Army?
I’m admittedly basing this on watching t.v. and movies, but isn’t the idea of “pawning” something that you’re getting a loan, and the item is collateral for the loan? Then in theory, you go back when you get some money, pay back the loan, and get your property back? And then I always assumed that most people who are in such dire straits that they needed to pawn something in the first place fail to come up with the money in the alloted time, so the pawn shop keeps the item?
So I always figured the people aren’t necessarily stupid, just overly-optimistic that they’ll be able to come up with the money to repay the loan. That and a lot of people fencing stolen goods, I imagine.
As already pointed out, I notice pawn shops always have utterly ridiculous price tags on the merchandise, frequently more than the item would cost brand new. It would indeed be foolish to pay the price on the tag without talking them down.
And I agree that you can get a really decent new television pretty darn cheap these days.
Heh, love the second comment on that video.
This is all correct. In Oklahoma, the pawned items are eligible for sale if no payments have been made in 60 days.
apropos of nothing, my coworker told me of this CRAZY way to get GOOD stuff CHEAP! Seems every once in awhile, the police auction off all the non-illegal stuff seized in raids.
So I went down to the auction, only to find that the folks that are likely to meet the men in blue at odd hours, also tend to not have the highest quality stuff.
Unless you’re interested in buying a good bolt cutter or three beam scale. There were LOTS of those available.
Yes,damn it they used to auction off the guns, too. Then the anti-gun nuts started whining. So then it was sales to Police, security and dealers only (and I could concede this). Now they pretty much melt them down or dump them in the ocean which means a large loss of funding. :mad:
Perhaps it may not apply to the OP but in Japan, all television stations will terminate analog broadcasts by 2011. Sets without a digital television tuner will not be able to broadcast TV programs. Is there a similar timeline in the US or where the OP resides?
I wouldn’t buy electronics at a pawn shop; They’re just too cheap at Costco to justify doing so. I do, however, have a very pretty cultured pearl, diamond, and 14k gold necklace that we got there; we “bundled” it, in the deal, with a 24" 14k solid rope chain to use with a pendant I frequently wear. We paid $360.00 for both pieces. The rope (solid, mind, not hollow) would have cost almost $200.00 at any jewelry store, and the pearl and diamond necklace appraised out at over $600.00. So I guess we got a pretty good deal. Not to mention that the pearl necklace looks custom-made, and I’ve never seen another one like it, and I love it. Sometimes, even when there’s no occasion to wear it, I take it out of it’s box just to admire it. Shiny.
That’s not as big a deal as it seems. yes, we ARE going to have a cutoff date, but there will be reasonably inexpensive solutions for folks unwilling (or unable) to migrate to the future. Last I heard there was going to be a subsidized digital tuner available to downconvert HDTV to older TVs. Further, if you have a satellite dish, you’ve been receiving a 100% digital signal for years, it’s the satellite box that converts it for you.
The computer industry has pointed it’s mighty R&D budget at televisions. The same way a $3500 computer can be had now for $250, TVs that cost $4500 can be had for $1200. They’re still cranking out new features as fast as they can, but TV’s not that complex. They bring out DLP tvs, then a few years later, bring out a better light wheel, then go from 720p to 1080p and a few years after that go to LED illumination…then what? There’s not a whole lot left to improve…in the meantime the first gen TV’s are CHEAP and work well enough for 99% of the population.
Yessss…we swears it…on the preciousssss…