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Pawn Stars
- Thread starter Lookingglassman
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I love both American Pickers and Pawn Stars. Mike and Frank are awesome, Danielle is awesome (
). I love watching them pick. It's in my blood, even though I don't do it myself. As for Pawn Stars, I like the show (Chumlee's my hero and is much smarter than he seems to be), and I like the guys because they have to be the most fair market pawn shop I've ever seen. "It's worth 10,000, and I'll offer you $5000." When I went to a local pawn shop, the item was worth $2000 and they offered me $50. 
). I love watching them pick. It's in my blood, even though I don't do it myself. As for Pawn Stars, I like the show (Chumlee's my hero and is much smarter than he seems to be), and I like the guys because they have to be the most fair market pawn shop I've ever seen. "It's worth 10,000, and I'll offer you $5000." When I went to a local pawn shop, the item was worth $2000 and they offered me $50. 
I love both American Pickers and Pawn Stars. Mike and Frank are awesome, Danielle is awesome (
Have you watched "Hardcore Pawn?" You really need a shower after watching the show. This is the reality of a real pawn shop. While I love Pawn Stars, the way they do business is the complete opposite of the rest of pawn shops in America.
Pawn Stars is entertaining, but I think part of it (at least) is scripted. Chum seems like a pretty good sport to take all the abuse.
American Pickers bothers me because they search out private people and try to get them to part with things that often they really don't want to sell. And it doesn't seem like they always give them a fair price. They used to call people like them "city slickers". At least on Pawn Stars, the people come to them willing to make a deal.
American Pickers bothers me because they search out private people and try to get them to part with things that often they really don't want to sell. And it doesn't seem like they always give them a fair price. They used to call people like them "city slickers". At least on Pawn Stars, the people come to them willing to make a deal.
Pawn Stars also has the advantage of their location, not to mention the income of doing the show.I love both American Pickers and Pawn Stars. Mike and Frank are awesome, Danielle is awesome (
Have you watched "Hardcore Pawn?" You really need a shower after watching the show. This is the reality of a real pawn shop. While I love Pawn Stars, the way they do business is the complete opposite of the rest of pawn shops in America.
I like American Pickers also. Pawn Stars is basically a cookie-cutter of Orange County Choppers or whatever it was called. American Pickers is cool because they're all geeks, including Danielle. And geek girls are the best.
I love Pawn Stars, but I haven't seen American Pickers (or Hardcore Pawn) yet.
Edit: I watched the first two seasons of Pawn Stars via Netflix instant streaming (after reading this thread). Netflix instant streaming also has season one of American Pickers, so I'll give that one a try.
Edit: I watched the first two seasons of Pawn Stars via Netflix instant streaming (after reading this thread). Netflix instant streaming also has season one of American Pickers, so I'll give that one a try.
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I love both American Pickers and Pawn Stars. Mike and Frank are awesome, Danielle is awesome (
Have you watched "Hardcore Pawn?" You really need a shower after watching the show. This is the reality of a real pawn shop. While I love Pawn Stars, the way they do business is the complete opposite of the rest of pawn shops in America.
I just saw the first episode of Hardcore Pawn just right now. Its pretty good so far, I like the irate black woman cursing and yelling and making threats
I've also seen a bit of Hard Core Pawn, now the owner of that store seems like a real grease ball.
Pawn stars is good.
I would imagine a lot of those that come in are trying to pay off debts?
Pawn stars is good.
I would imagine a lot of those that come in are trying to pay off debts?
Do you live in the Quad area, Timby? My wife and I lived there for 2.5 years when I was in the Coast Guard, '88-'90. We've been back in Des Moines since '93.
Hardcore Pawn? What's that?
As far as "American Jewelry and Loan goes, here's about how they do their pricing:
In general, an item in good used condition is worth about 50-60% of the cost of a new item. When they sell stuff, they ask about 45-50% of the cost new, and they can be talked down to about 40% in most cases. When selling an item to the store, they'll start at about 20% and can be talked up to 25%. Pawning an item can go a little higher.
Chumley has his moments, but overall I find myself with a headache from all the eyerolling he inspires. Other than that, I find the show highly entertaining. I think it's a nice fit on the History Channel - the little snippets of history we get in item descriptions and what-not are fun and informative. And I genuinely like Rick as a person. His dad is amusing but would drive me nuts in person, and his son needs to learn respect and manners. But Rick is just cool. 
I got to meet Mike and Danielle from American Pickers last summer when we passed near Le Claire on vacation. When we found the place, we were struck by how much smaller it seems in person than in real life. But let me tell you, they have a beautiful view from their front door! I wish I had taken a picture. They face the Mississippi River, and it's just beautiful.
Both of them, and especially Mike, were SO friendly and great to talk to. Mike told us about how it took around four years for the History Channel to finally go for their pitch, and that it was the success of Pawn Stars that convinced the suits that there was a viewership for a show like theirs. Mike was keen to pose for whatever pictures we wanted to take and encouraged us to meet everyone else who was there and talk as much as we wanted about picking and the show and whatever we wanted. He never made us feel like we were taking up his work time or in the way. He genuinely values the fans of the show. The visit was one of the highlights of our trip.
Here I am with my folks and Mike:
Here's a snapshot of Danielle:
I wish I had gotten a closer picture of her. Her tattoos give a very Trill-like impression, though I imagine they're leopard spots. Still, I couldn't help thinking "Trill" whenever I looked at her.
I got to meet Mike and Danielle from American Pickers last summer when we passed near Le Claire on vacation. When we found the place, we were struck by how much smaller it seems in person than in real life. But let me tell you, they have a beautiful view from their front door! I wish I had taken a picture. They face the Mississippi River, and it's just beautiful.
Both of them, and especially Mike, were SO friendly and great to talk to. Mike told us about how it took around four years for the History Channel to finally go for their pitch, and that it was the success of Pawn Stars that convinced the suits that there was a viewership for a show like theirs. Mike was keen to pose for whatever pictures we wanted to take and encouraged us to meet everyone else who was there and talk as much as we wanted about picking and the show and whatever we wanted. He never made us feel like we were taking up his work time or in the way. He genuinely values the fans of the show. The visit was one of the highlights of our trip.
Here I am with my folks and Mike:
Here's a snapshot of Danielle:
I wish I had gotten a closer picture of her. Her tattoos give a very Trill-like impression, though I imagine they're leopard spots. Still, I couldn't help thinking "Trill" whenever I looked at her.
I watched a short marathon of this show over the weekend and quite liked it. It's interesting to me how many people bring in an item they see is valuable because a book or auction or something like that fetched a high price. Like a guy had a chess board made from wood of the Titanic. Okay, sure,it may be "worth" $15K, it may fetch that at an auction but you're not getting a Pawn Shop to buy it for that much because the shop has to buy it and then turn around and sell it for a profit!
It's always better to sell something yourself than to sell it to someone else who's going to turn around and sell it.
It's always better to sell something yourself than to sell it to someone else who's going to turn around and sell it.
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Of course, there's no end to this:
Appraiser: "It would be worth about $1000 at auction."
Rick: "Okay, man, what are you askin'?"
Customer: "Well, he said $1000, so... $1000."
Or my favorite one:
Customer: "Well, he said $1000, so I'll let you have it for $2500".
They don't realize that the shop has to turn around and sell it, to make money on it.
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Yeah, what I do like about the show is that from what I can tell (and having a great deal of first-hand experience with pawn shops), the offers these guys make are usually much higher than a regular pawn shop. I remember taking in a 19" CRT TV to one of our local shops. At the time, HDTVs didn't yet exist in 99.9% of people's homes. In fact, DVD was just starting to become well known. Anyhoo, so I take this 19" TV up to the counter, the guy looks at it, and says "Are you wanting to pawn or sell your TV?". I say, "I want to sell it." So he plugs it in, tries out the remote, everything works fine. The TV is in great shape. I take care of my stuff. So he looks it over, and says "I'll give you $5."
Lowballing is so incredibly common in pawn shops, that when I first heard Rick offer a guy $5500 for a $9000 appraised item, I just about fell out of my seat. That was incredibly fair, considering it's a pawn shop!
^And it's great to see that their honest-dealings have paid off:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Stars#cite_note-BusinessWeek-78
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Stars
I doubt their customer base would have risen nearly as much had their show involved low-balling customers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Stars#cite_note-BusinessWeek-78
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Stars#cite_note-BusinessWeek-78
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_Stars
I doubt their customer base would have risen nearly as much had their show involved low-balling customers.
