soonerbills

Ya know the one on tv.... Looking around...uh huh
And I see this.






I'm like... ya know ... you would think maybe a PX10 or sumthin really unique

WTF

cudak888 

What do you expect? One TV show = every piece of crap in their shop now commands a premium.

After all, it isn't as if the show isn't founded on rip-off flipping.

-Kurt

soonerbills

After all, it isn't as if the show isn't founded on rip-off flipping.

auchencrow

I gotta get me a TV show.

Chombi

So......did you "pop" on it??!!

Chombi

cudak888 

Costs 10 cents.

-Kurt

Amani576

The show itself isn't bad. I just don't like how they deal. They never give somebody a good value, and I think the pressure of the TV crews there makes it hard for people (who really should) to turn down their offers. :-/
How nice is the rest of the store as opposed to the little bit they show on TV?
-Gene-

dahut

Pawn Stars is really Economics 101. When you watch the show, you are really seeing the stock market at work. I mean who doesn't dream of getting in on the ground floor of a hot stock when it is selling for a dollar, and seeing it skyrocket?

I'm guessing most of the respondents so far do not really grasp the concept of "Buy Low, Sell High?"

This immutable law of the universe says, "You make your money when you obtain an item - NOT when you sell it."
Ask ten people that question, "When do you make your money selling an item?" and 8 out of 10 will say, "When someone buys it." Which is wrong, because if you bought a thing for a "fair" price of $100 - and it is only worth $100 - then you got nowhere.
The Pawn Star guys are not selling their services or working for someone else. They create retail prices, not trade them back and forth. That creation occurs at the front end.

On the flip side, many people are plain dumb as to value. "Every frog praises their own pond," of course, but impartial estimation is the name of the game. It doesn't matter what you have in it, or what your Uncle Louie told you its worth. It is only worth what people will pay to own it. That is the basis of ebay - you cannot get more than people will pay. Anyone who has sold on ebay, or even the classifieds, faces that truth at some point.
Flatly put, most people have no realistic idea of what things are worth because they don't do the research themselves. If they did, and they had anything of real value, they would not take them to a pawn shop. Pawn dealers are for those in a hurry or who are too lazy to do the due diligence the Pawn Stars have already done.

On a more personal note, bikes are sold the same way as the P-Stars do things. Frames are obtained from a job shop, often in Asia where labor is cheap, and a bunch of stock components are purchased - all at the lowest possible cost, of course. Everything is then assembled, again at the lowest cost, and sold to an agent/reseller (the LBS) at a beneficial remuneration quotient... fancy lingo for a profit.
The LBS then adds on their own profit layers, pricing them higher than THEY bought it for. One difference with them over the Pawn Stars, however, is this essentially kills negotiation. THEY set the price and you pay it... or go elsewhere. That no one complains about this situation, but pounds the pawn broker into the ground, is the most interesting thing.

This, too, is how things work, I suppose.

Amani576

Oh, I have no delusions about how they work. I know they're just trying to make money. And it's too obvious some times that people who really should do their research don't and really get lowballed in doing so. I guess my problem, atleast with them, is their attitude. They can be complete dicks sometimes. Or they'll bring someone in, have them evaluate the item (like a gun or sports memorabilia), give em' a value, and then they'll offer 1/8" of that and say "Oh, they were just getting excited". They call those people friends, yet if they were my friends and I saw them say that about me, I'd be mad as hell at them for saying something like that about me on national TV.
Iuhno, it's interesting what's brought in, definitely, but the guys themselves can be hard to watch sometimes. And the people who are selling them really need to realize there are better places to sell than a pawn shop (Especially when you don't really NEED to sell the item).
-Gene-

dahut

Cool. Its late and I cant sleep - I got a little preachy, there. Thanks.

Ive never really seen them being "dicks to customers," although they are harsh to each other... some of which is played up for the script. Most often the expert values given for items are what the experts have seen them go for, or what they believe they would sell for at auction.
Also, more often thannot, the expert is the pawn broker himself.

I used to know a pawn broker, and he knew what things were worth off the top of his head. He was amazing, really.
Often, it was intuitive, based on yeas of experience. But when he was in doubt, he had learned to deal in minimum buy prices, simply as a matter of expediency. Guitars bring this much, a gun that much, coins another price. He made his offers based on that.
On PawnStars, they accentuate the unusual. But, most of what they do is mundane and fairly common place.

The point is made often that the PawnStars are not in the business to make other people money. If you want the experts price, then you will have to consign it to an auction, or sell it some other way. Sometimes that comes across as stark, but it is honest.

Esteban32696

I stopped in a " Habitat for Humanity " store , yesterday. It is in a college town, so bikes are in demand there. They had one adult bike. About a 5 year old Ladie's Huffy Cruiser . A good bit of surface rust & needed tires. $ 80 price tag on it !!!!!!

kknh3

I worked in a pawn shop during a period of unemployment. It was an interesting, fun job that paid zip. It was barely more than unemployment.

All in all, it was probably one of the "best" jobs I've had from an enjoyment perspective. No two days were ever the same. You got to hear a lot of stories and see a lot of stuff.

When I started, my boss told me to make offers with the thought of tripling the investment if we were to sell whatever the item was. This was for everyday run of the mill items that were brought in to the shop. He handled most of the jewelry. We bought gold based upon weight.

As far as pawn shops go, the one I worked in was pretty straight up and decent in regards to how we dealt with customers. There is a lot of potential to manipulate and prey upon people in that business. One of the most common is to deny someone's request for a loan, but then offer to buy the item from them for less than what they wanted to borrow. That is one shady way that shops get good merchandise at really low prices that enables them to make a big profit when they sell. People who are desparate will go for it more often than not. It's especially bad when the shop would probably make the loan if the customer looked like they were going to leave versus selling.

The pawn business is very interesting. I think if you're a garage sale, flea market, auction type you could do well, especially considering the onine information available today. I worked in this shop in 92 - 93, so the internet was just getting started as a mainstream information source.

Since I've become interested in cycling, I've never seen a great bicycle deal at a pawn shop. I've seen quite a few good prices on serviceable bikes that would have made good riders, but nothing really jaw dropping.

KonAaron Snake 

That's interesting...I'm continually shocked by how high their offers are and always assumed that was just for the TV cameras.

noglider 

Maybe it is. Maybe they want to pump up the pawn shop industry (or just this shop) by giving individual sellers hope that they'll get a good selling price at a pawn shop.

Grim

I don't get the *****...They are a business. their purpose is to make money. If you pay retail and sell retail then there is no money made to pay the light bill. The price is ultimately what the market will bare. If the price is too high it will not sell.
The price on the Schwinn is not really out of place in a retail environment. It is a pawn shop and most will entertain offers. Fact is that bike is now bringing decent cash these days. Hell have you seen what an original Stingray is going for on E-Bay? A Stingray in that same condition regularly fetches $300 $400.
https://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-1969-Sch...item2308729e4a
Here is a Lemon peeler that didn't meet the reserve at $870!
https://cgi.ebay.com/1972-SCHWINN-LEM...item255bcc0275
A Karate at $860.
A Ghost at $750
https://cgi.ebay.com/SCHWINN-STINGRAY...item2308919303
A Deluxe for $420
https://cgi.ebay.com/1965-Schwinn-Sti...item3f0143f651

I flip a good number of bikes and if that Schwinn was mine that's about where my first listing would be to see if anybody bit on it. A week later I would drop the price $10-15 to see if there was somebody on the fence. I'd expect no less then $130 for that bike and I bet you could walk in there and buy that bike for close to that.

Fact is that was probably a pity buy for $50-60.

cudak888 

Yes, and you can't compare it with a Breeze no matter how much you want to win your argument.

-Kurt

USAZorro

$130.00 for that? Those sit untaken at yard sales at $30.00 around here.

brian3069

I bet the real money's in making loans. Short term, high interest and very little risk.

cudak888 

P.S.: Shouldn't all of these threads about sales price arguments and "how to make offers" go to What's It Worth?

-Kurt

KonAaron Snake 

I thought that too...but not so. They actually do better on the loans than on sales and generally prefer when people do come back...but the industry number is that something like %90 won't.

gomango

Yes, they should.



......and yes. Littering lawn sales from Lake Minnetonka to Woodbury. Usually asking $25.

Getting whatever, although they make great grocery store bikes with baskets.

Rabid Koala

I was in a pawn shop to look at some guns recently. They had a Schwinn Varsity (maybe Suburban) with the front freewheel. It was priced at several hundred dollars. I pretty much never look for bikes in pawn shops. I did see an Apple Krate at one a couple of years ago for $1600.

soonerbills

It's in the crappy part of the strip and it is nothing like you see in the show. ... dumpy and no better than any other pawn shop I have been to. I was not impressed. They did have a number of the items that you see on the show there and all are way over priced. IMHO Some cool stuff but a lot of mundane items + over half of the shop is devoted to show t shirts and the like.

Cyclist01012

The firerarm "experts" that they call in are often full of $#^T. Anyone with half a brain checks to see if a muzzleloader has a charge in the barrel (checking with ramrod wont go into detail). I do a number of shows a year that I often end up handleing some reall cool old guns, and about 1 out of 5 has a charge in the barrel. Then you dont go out and shoot the thing. not at least you have taken the barrel out of the wood unscrewed the brreach checked the threads ect.

SirMike1983 

Very, very true. Many muzzleloading guns are pawned because the owner wants some money and is having issues with that gun. That often means a charge in the barrel the owner couldn't get to go off. The interesting thing is that technically such a condition is "not loaded" under many state laws because the state law requires powder in the pan or a cap on the nipple. But it is still dangerous, especially if you go to test the lock and the thing finally does go off, or you sell it and the guy who buys it double charges it and then fires the whole lot off (aka pipe bomb).

A responsible dealer will always check for a charge in the barrel, usually using a rod of known measure to check for the presence of a charge. Sadly this doesn't often happen because pawn shop dealers often know a few cents about everything, but a dollar of nothing. It's always good to mark the ram rod you use with the gun with stripes for "unloaded" and "charged", making a couple different marks for charges of various grains you usually use.