Pawning is heavily misunderstood. Most people believe that everyone who is in this business is a scammer and a crook. But one pawnshop owner has decided to prove that these claims couldn’t be further from the truth, writing a brutally honest post about all the biggest secrets of the craft.

They explained why pawnbrokers aren’t usually in the game to screw over potential customers (of course, no area is asshole-proof), why they don’t care if someone ‘says no to them,’ and the fundamental difference between pawning and simply selling an item.

On top of this confession cake, they’ve included a sweet sweet cherry – a list of the rare and unique items they’ve collected over the years of hard work. Each gem comes with its price and a brief story behind it. Scroll down to enjoy the story!

Gold shavings

This is a kind of rare story you will ever hear about in a pawnshop history. I had a young male (Mid 20’s) and his girlfriend brought a box in and said they had some gold to sell. I’m sitting here thinking well this guy has some of his grandmas jewelry and usually it’s just fake costume jewelry and when he opened the box he showed me all of this I about shit my self and I am sitting there looking at him like where In the hell did you get this much gold. He told me about how his dad used to own a pawn shop and just passed recently and this was SOME of the gold he had in his house. He then told me he had way more which he did i bought more from him later on. This gold weighted up too 500 grams and today’s value for were gold is at is about $12,431.49 and I gave him 20% below spot which was about $9,945.19 and I later on bought about $20,000 worth of gold from him after this. The sad thing is he wanted less then that and he told me he wanted $3000 and this was before we even opened the box. I test all of it then I told him that i was going to give him more then that and told him the price above I told you above. He started crying and telling us thank you so much and told us he can now pay for his dads funeral and pay for his moms bills. The only reason I know this is a true story about his dad is because the owner of my pawnshop was good friends with him and he bought his pawnshop years ago and attended his funeral that week.

Image credits: PawnMaster

“Rolex” watch

This Rolex is a “Lady-DateJust 28” series watch and was one of the first real Rolex’s that I have ever seen that came through my store and purchased. I later on sold this watch for $7000. ( 99% of the time they are fake and you can hold the watch and feel how light it is and know its fake because most Rolexes are heavy. Another way to tell is to take the band off and look for the module number and also you need a special tool to take a Rolexes back off to see inside of it and you will see markings in them if they are real.)

Image credits: PawnMaster

Ring

This is one of many rings that have came through my store but this ring is very unique because of this big diamond in the middle. This ring at a jewelry store would go for about $10,000 – $15,000 which is insane to think about. I loaned a guy $1500 ring and he never came and picked it up. I ended up selling this ring for $6000 (Sad thing is there are people who go around that buy diamonds for a living and he saw it the first day I put it out and bought it right away cash money.) Came back later on and told me he sold it for $10,000. (#1 Show off)

Image credits: PawnMaster

Gaming stuff

So the story behind this is a guy who owned a video game store came in and was carrying the laptop and Nintendo switch (this is when it first came out and I also love computers.) and told me he needed to get a loan and wanted $1000 I told him there was no way I could do that and said oh there is more in my car and came in with all this. I gave him the money and after 3 months came he never picked it up and I sold all this for about $3000

Image credits: PawnMaster

“Little Samson” video game

Yes this is an original copy of “Little Samson” this game was sold for $1000 and yes I opened up the Cartage and looked at the board to see if it was legit just in case your wondering.

Image credits: PawnMaster

Nazi Luger

I couldn’t find the original picture I had with the Nazi Luger and original case but here is a picture of a regular one I have come through my pawn shop and sold I have had 4 of these total come through my shop and have sold all of them the one with the case and the nazi symbolizes on the Luger and holster all original and looked amazing sold for $4000 the one in the picture which was a 1921 sold for $1400

1920 DWM/Erfurt Rework – produced 1920-21
Refinished for the German Army and Police units
Caliber 9mm Parabellum – 4″ barrel
Many thousands numbered 1 to 5 digits with letter

Browning hi-power by Inglis

Browning hi-power by Inglis this was made in Canada one of the first ones made in the factory in 1945. They were making these in German before the nazis started taking over and they moved them to Canada. This gun sold with the stock for about $1800

Image credits: PawnMaster

The Mauser C96

The Mauser C96 aka broom handle famous from WW1 and was the pistol used by Han solo the DL-44 in the famous Star Wars movie (Just in case your interested here is an article about it and other guns the use “https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/10/20/the-real-world-small-arms-that-inspired-the-weapons-of-star-wars/?utm_term=.3a113d3f1534“) An old man pawned this for $300 and lost it because he passed away. We did try to contact a family member to see if they wanted it but they declined but this is one cool gun it sadly didn’t have the holster for it. We sold it later on for about a $1000.

Image credits: PawnMaster

Franchi Spas-12

Here is an original Franchi Spas-12 made in Italy before the ban in 1989. That I sold for $1500. This gun is very popular mostly because SWAT used to use this gun and it’s popular from the movie Terminator (Just some fun facts). Here are the pictures I took of the one I had and sold.

Image credits: PawnMaster

FN PS40

FN PS40 this is the civilian version of an p90 sold this for $1400 this is the knock off version of a p90 but this version is semi

Image credits: PawnMaster

Kriss Vector 45ACP Alpine

Kriss Vector 45ACP Alpine white probably one of my favorite modern gun. I got this for my self for $400 and if you ask why so cheap ? It’s because it was my birthday and the owner knew I had my eye on it for awhile.

Image credits: PawnMaster

I want to add this because of people are saying. All Pawnshops screw people and how the items above were low balled and we shitted them which I don’t believe is true.

1. We are not out to screw you for your items

Going to use for an example someone trying to sell their Iphone

What I mean by that is for example: Just because someone buys a new Iphone when it first comes out and a year later they decided there willing to sell it so they can get the newest Iphone. Then lets say the Iphone they are trying to sell sold new a year ago for $700. That does not mean I’m going to give you Full price. Try to think about the store they can’t sell a used Iphone for $700. You have to consider that your phone is not the same price from when you originally purchased it.

So What I usually would do is, go to my computer, go to eBay, go type in the model number and the storage capacity and then go to sold and complete listings so I know how much they sell for. I would see they sell for about $450 used.

Almost about every Pawnshop goes about 1/3 of what that item sells for used on Ebay. (Consider what I’m going to offer this man and that’s about $150 to $170. That’s wiggle room so I can at least go up a little more then 1/3 just because I know I can sell this eventually) Your probably sitting there thinking “JESUS CHRIST HELL NO THATS TO LOW”. Well… this is the thing about Pawnshops I’m not actually going to get $400 for this Iphone. I’m going to price it $350 and then someone is going to come along however long it may take. This could be the next day or months or even a year and even the price also could go down more on this Phone because they release a new one each year. So about 1/3 of the item is safe for us so we could at least break even. So whoever comes to buy the phone they are going to offer me probably $250 after I have already marked it down to $300 because it has been sitting there for a couple months. We will do some negotiation and I’ll probably let it go for $270 That’s about a $110 profit for something that could sit there for about a year and possible not make money off of and $110 dollars isn’t bad but it takes time for stuff to sell I could see around 20-100 customers a day but 1/2 of them are there to sell and pawn so that’s about 10-50 people that could see that item and 3/4 of them have a phone or doesn’t want a phone anyways so I have about 3-12 people IF I’m lucky that could possible be interested in it.

2. We don’t care if you say no to us

Yes, we know you could sell your Iphone to someone or even online for more then we would offer you. But we have to make money to and we will even tell you that just so you know why it’s that way. We will even explain are 1/3 of its value to you and usually they will understand and leave as happy as they came in and 70% of the time they sell it to us after we tell them this. (I think it’s because people are lazy. I’m not to sure about it if you think you can explain to me why by all means let me know below I love people’s opinions.) But the funny thing is 20% of those people that didn’t they will usually come back and take the deal. The best part about this is some of them will lie right to your face.

My top favorite was this one time I had someone bring there chainsaw to me saying they needed $200 on it for a LOAN. I look it up and I told him why I couldn’t and offered to lend him $100 (I do this because of the 1/3 rule and I want to help him out with some money). We talked calmly about a better price and I ended up going to $125 because he was telling me his story why he needed it. (Which he lied about. I found out later on why he needed the money but there is always a story behind ever pawn just FYI…) but I couldn’t offer him more because If he decided not to pick it up I wouldn’t make money because this chainsaw was $200 used. Well he was not too happy about this at all… He tells me “Are you fucking kidding me this thing is $500 brand new blah blah blah”. Then goes to tell me “You must be retarded.” After doing my normal routine of showing him the price online for what it was going for and explaining why I couldn’t go higher, trying to calm him down so he might be able to understand. He jerked his chainsaw off the table and then yelling as loud as he could “Fuck you and this shit place” and leaves slamming the door. Me and my Co-worker and the people in the store were laughing because of how ridiculous he acted. So about 30 minutes passes by and I’m showing someone a gun (Which Was the Spas-12 I showed in the images which is kind of funny). I tell my co-worker he is back (I give him the heads up so he can be near the stores gun for our safety.) He walks to the door with his chainsaw which I didn’t see until he got to the door. I let him in (We have buzzards on the door for our safety.) I’m also grinning because I know he is about to tell me some story about what happen. He places his chainsaw on the counter and tells us he’s sorry for earlier and for saying all those hateful things to me. He then goes to tell us “When I left I was thinking In my car about what you said and I started to understand while I was driving down the road” he then told me he will take the $125 for the chainsaw.

But see the thing is I know exactly where he took his road trip to which was are next store (Which he didn’t know about.) About 75% of the time they usually go to the next Pawnshop near them to see if they can get more money. I called my other store and told them to look out for him and if he came in there to offer him $50 for his chainsaw. (And If your wondering how they knew who to look for. Its because they look up your name to see if you are in our system to check your history with us and to see if you lost anything with us before.) They told me he showed his ass saying the other store offered him $175 (which was me and I didn’t).

I told him I would give him the money. But I ask him why he went to out other Pawnshop and showed his ass. (Me and my Co-worker were laughing at this point.) He then got flustered and his face turned blood shot red because he knew he got caught and said “Well you got me” And he smiled apologizing again. I ended up telling him I would give him the money but he needed to apologize to the other store too for showing his ass (Which he did). I gave him the $150 plus $40 from my own pocket because he gave me and my Co-worker a good laugh and I could tell he wasn’t to bad of a guy.

Well his name is John and he is now my number one best customer. He doesn’t pawn anymore and the only reason he did that day was because he had a speeding ticket he needed to cover.

He also help me setup a server so all 3 of our stores can share the same info in our system which we call Pawndex. (We both have 4-year degrees in networking and security.)

Moral of this story is:

Don’t burn down a bridge that you haven’t seen the end of yet.

P. S.:

We still bust his balls about the first time we meet him. He turns red ever time.

3. There is a difference between Pawning and selling an item

Losing your stuff in pawn is not going to help you out when it comes to you wanting to keep pawning there. It’s just like a credit card you fall behind on payments and your credit score goes down. But the thing is for us you have 90 days to get it back. We also are give you a extra 60 day Gracie Period which we give you for free. (Not all pawnshops do this.)

So let’s say you borrow a $100 from my Pawnshop and the interest is 22% (The interest-rates very for different states) if you want to get it out that month it would be a total $122 and goes up $22 each month. Well this is how we kind of get you sort of… Most people think they have all the time in the world to get it out. While the months go by they have waited until that last month we give you to get it out. But when they get to the store and they notice that it’s now $166 and blame us saying, “Why the hell is this so high.” Well you sign a ticket saying you agree to pay this interest rate and we give you a copy of your ticket, which says that too.

Well when you have lost something in pawn we see that and we have a percentage of what you have Pawned and what you have lost. When you pickup rate is low and we see that before negotiating with you. Most of the time they will not be willing to work with you just because we see you don’t pick your stuff up which hurts you tremendously.

We even have cases when people come in to make a payment and they will forget when they have pawned their item and they end up being 20 days late from there payment due date.

Since we are nice people we tell them if they see it in the store to bring it to us and we will work something out. If they find their item in the store somewhere, we will let them put it back into pawn, But they have to pay 2 months of there due date to put it back in. (FYI we 100% don’t have to do this at all. But we are nice people and understand things happen.)

(We have made a lot of people smile for doing this. I think this is why we have a lot of Business. I’m not sure if we are the only Pawnshop to do this.)

I hope this shows people that Pawnshops are not out to get you and we really do want you to keep your stuff in pawn and not on the shelf. We understand your valuables are something you want to keep, because we would feel the same way if it happens to us too.

Below is a quote I will never forget that makes me really enjoy what I do.

“Every item old or new has a story behind it. Nothing is ever junk in the eyes of someone that knows the history behind it no mater old or new.”

I heard this quote from an old man that came to my store one day. He had some items stolen from him one of his items that he lucky found at are store which was his deceased wife’s wedding ring. That was stolen from him after almost 3 months have gone by (Usually we scrap stuff that sits out for about 1 month and we had that ring out for about 2 months.) and when I handed him this ring. He was shaking in joy and told me what he put on the inside of the ring which said (To the love of my life). I Never seen someone as happy as this old man that found his deceased wife’s ring and I will never forget this.

*We gave him the ring back for free*

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