Have you ever been to a pawn shop?

14 years ago

I'm a fan of Pawn Stars on the History Channel. When I used to work in Philadelphia I often would take a walk on South Street when the weather was nice. I started looking in the window of a particular pawn shop and one day saw a Porter-Cable (a top brand) biscuit joiner, a woodworking power tool I had been thinking about buying for some time. I inquired about it - the price tag in the window said $85 but the guy said "I'll let you have it for $75" without any prompting from me. It's worked great and a new one costs a lot more.

My question - ever been to a pawn shop? Did you find what you were looking for? Did you pawn or sell something?

Merry Christmas, if I don't see you.

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Comments (22)

Terri_PacNW
14 years ago
I have been in a few Pawn Shops and even purchased a few things. Never Pawned anything..however..I do have a few pieces of jewelry I've thought about taking in..just to get a few $ for them..
patti43
14 years ago
No but I've always wanted to!
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I personally are not fond of pawn shops. I think they tend to take advantage of people. I don't mean in every case... just in general. The people who sell these items to pawn shops are quite often desperate and get very little from what they sell... Not to mention that, yes, the items always have the possiblilty of having been stolen. The first thing most folks around here do after a theft, is check all the pawn shops. That can happen on ebay as well of course, but pawn shops are faster and more convienient for most theives. I also think that in the case of items that are held until the owner buys them back are sold back at a greatly increased price. I know they have to make some profit, I just don't agree with this practice. But then, I also feel rather badly towards rental places that sell/rent household items at greatly inflated prices that are up to 3 or 4 times the real cost. I feel these people take advantage of people with little money, give them pretty poor merchandise (have you seen how poor the quality of furniture usually is?)and basically rip them off. I don't frequent either type of store. We generally find excellent tools at local auctions (the ones held at peoples homes), at garage sales, and online. The rest we buy new. In fact, most of our tools were bought at an auction from the guy we bought our property from. We got things like a drill press, two industrial size welders, a huge air compressor, a WALL of hammers and many other great items at REALLY low prices. He even had a thing that machined custom parts... but we had spent a lot and had no real need for it... so we let it go. I just wish he had had a tractor we could have bought. Still looking for a good one we can afford. sigh.
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Jodi_SoCal
14 years ago
When we were in Alaska this last March we were told pawn shops are a great place to find genuine Alaska artifacts so off we went to find some great deals. Didn't find a whole lot of what we were looking for but did meet a very interesting character named Scotty at the Spenard Pawn Shop in Anchorage. He was a hoot. Here he is:

{{!gwi}}

Jodi-
Coosie
14 years ago
My answer is the same as Patti's...I never have but always wanted to. :)
bigack
14 years ago
Never been, but we watch Pawn Stars also, neat show. The old guy cracks me up!
ruthieg__tx
14 years ago
We have our watch batteries changed at a local pawn shop and I always have to look around. I have never bought anything though.
joann23456
14 years ago
Yes, but I've never bought anything. At the one I went to, the prices weren't as good as I'd hoped.
linda_in_iowa
14 years ago
Years ago I bought a ruby ring at a pawn shop. It is always fun to look around.
trinitytx
14 years ago
The only time I went to one was to retrive my lawn mower that had been stolen. I had to go before a judge first, then when the pawn shop doesn't appear (they never do) you are allowed to go pick it up.
I always thought of pawn shops as homes for stolen goods, but I know that is not always the case. Just my bad misfortune. We have one on every corner seems like here in Texas.

Trin
deemarie5500
14 years ago
My friend and I went to several while visiting Florida (our DH's were at a ball game). I bought a beautiful white gold bracelet that had small diamonds in it for less than 80 dollars. According to appraiser, it's worth quite a bit more.

Funny thing--I have not been able to wear it without thinking about the person who had to let it go. I kept telling DH "what if she sold it for food for her children"? I don't get much joy out of it, because of a story I made up!!!
marilyn_c
14 years ago
My wedding rings were stolen a couple of months ago, and so I have been to a lot of pawn shops lately, looking for them. I have never pawned anything, and we usually don't buy from them, because we can get better deals elsewhere, but we have bought pawn tickets from people who were going to let their stuff go and paid them out. We bought several tickets for $10
apiece awhile back and got two tvs, a watch and several rings.
trinitytx
14 years ago
I got lucky with the lawn mower. The neighbor across the street saw the kids that took it and identified their car.
I sent a VERY strong message to them to tell me where it was at or else. It worked.
Here in Texas, the shops must hold the merchandise for a determined amount of time, and give the police dept. in the area a weekly list of what has been pawned. We could have also contacted them, and found it, but found an easier route.

Marilyn I hope you find your rings....keep looking....

Trin
liz
14 years ago
I went with a co-worker who was down on her luck and she pawned a bunch of jewelry...she got hardly anything for it...there were lots of interesting things in that place...

When we were first married our house was robbed...I hit bunches of them trying to recover all my jewelry...no luck...
mariend
14 years ago
Several years ago, before we built our previous house, DH went to a certain pawn shop, that he felt good about. At that time all the pawn shops in the city were checked up weekly by the sheriffs dept and tools, guns, jewelery were never sold until a certain time had passed and they were ok'ed by the police. He picked up most of his tool, nail guns, saws etc for next to nothing. Not because of so much steeling, but contractors always needed money.
I picked up 2 almost brand new sewing machines.
kacram
14 years ago
yes, I bought a bracelet that has since broken!

deemarie! ... the woman that sold the bracelet sold it because the guy that gave it to her was a jerk and she'd rather have the few bucks than have that as a constant reminder! lOL
donna37
14 years ago
When we were married some 48 years ago, we came home from our honeymoon with a little extra money and went to a pawn shop and bought a sewing machine, radio and a couple of other things that I can't remember what they were.

I've visited some since but never bought anything. GKs have bought some DVDs at one of the local ones here.
jemdandy
14 years ago
Back in the late 1950's when I was a college student, I did view a couple of pawn shops and have bought an antique camera from one. Many items in the shop were junk or in need of repair. For example, the camera was a folding tourist camera. The mechanisms were in good order, but the bellows leaked light and there was another light leak at the hinge on the back. I repaired both light leaks and got a working camera with a Prontor lens.

It seems to me that the old pawn shop of the past has faded away, at least in my section of the country. I haven't seen a good pawn shop in several years. There are none in the smaller towns in SE Wisconsin. Maybe if I walked the downtown streets of a larger city, I would run across one. But wait! The old style downtowns have dissappeared. Maybe the pawn shops evaporated with those.

Maybe the new pawn shop is E-Bay.
country_bumpkin_al
14 years ago
I LOVE going to Pawn Shops (one in particular because they have such great deals.) So yes..I have bought from Pawn Shops and I have Pawned/Sold stuff.

Got kind of a "Miracle" story to share. Many years ago, I was hot and heavy into doing the counted cross-stitching. A freind came over one day and told me that Walmart had all their X-Stitch supplies on sale! I was BROKE...but knew I HAD to get in on the sale! So what'd I do? I pawned my WEDDING RINGS!! (what WAS I thinking???). In my defense, my wedding set was white gold..and I'd started wearing yellow gold several years before..and my white gold set ended up in my jewelry box. So we go to the Pawn Shop and I pawned them for $25.-$30. and we headed to Walmart! I just never could seem to come up with the money to go back and get my rings (and d@mned if I was telling DH what I'd done). Months turned into years...and sometimes I'd think about my rings..and feel sick that I'd done something so stupid, but you can't un-ding the bell!:(

It was probably 8yrs. later another friend and I were in the same shop..and I asked to see the white gold wedding sets. The lady pulled a couple of trays from under the counter and I started looking. Not for MY set...just looking!! I was looking in the 2nd tray and about fell over the counter! There was MY set of rings! I knew beyond doubt they were MINE!!! My friend knew they were MINE!! I almost started crying and told the lady that I'd pawn them several years ago...and by golly, I wanted them back!! Would you believe the guy (owner) asked if I remembered how much I got for them and when I told him...he let me "buy" the back for that amount!!

All the Pawn Shops in this town don't have enough $$ to buy those rings NOW!*S*
bee0hio
14 years ago
DH & I went to one in Las Vegas a few years ago, just to see what they had. The building looked pretty nice, but my thought on looking at their merchandise was, "I can't tell what's good & what's junk". Basically it all looked like junk to me, but then I am like that with yard sales, etc. Just don't have the "trash to treasure gene".
joyfulguy
14 years ago
Hi bee Ohio,

Wheat and chaff ain't the same!

Sometimes it doesn't take too much training to tell the difference, but there does need to be some attraction/desire.

And it helps a lot to have an experienced trainer: digging up experience on one's own takes a lot longer and usually includes a number of goofs along the road.

But, like with yard sales ... often substantial savings can be found. And some valuable stuff found, occasionally.

Also, one needs to develop a skill at resisting the temptation that appears at times to purchase too much stuff: "can't pass up a bargain like that!".

Or indiscriminately.

Use the opportunity of a New Year to develop a new skill. And/or a new dream.

ole joyful
lindyluwho
14 years ago
Great story, Bump. Glad you got your rings back.

Linda
deemarie5500
14 years ago
Oh, KAT!! I just saw your reply to me, and I love it. Tomorrow night I will be wearing that bracelet.
Thanks for turning my head to the positive side!
Dee

Have you ever been to a pawn shop?

Comments (22)

Terri_PacNW

patti43

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