Pawn shops

[abunaitoo]

How are pawn shops in your area????
We have a few here. Some are honest. Most are crooks.
Honest ones seem not to have many things in them.
Bad ones have stuff from floor to ceiling.
Most seem to not last to long.

[Chill Wills]

How can you tell a good one from a bad one? I have never bought anything from one.

[FLINTNFIRE]

Here there are a few , crooked yes , honest none left , firearms are marked as high as can be , at least there are a few gun shops left and they are pretty good.

[am44mag]

My LGS is a pawn shop. I don't think he sells a lot, I think he mainly does it to have something to do. It's a small shop. Some tools, a couple guitars, some electronics, and maybe a dozen or so guns. He used to have like a hundred a few years back. I actually bought by first gun there. A Remington 700 ADL in 30-06 with a gorgeous nutmeg laminate stock. $400 OTD. Didn't look like it had ever been fired.

He does my FFL transfers for free.

[am44mag]

How can you tell a good one from a bad one? I have never bought anything from one.

If they're selling a $300 gun for $600, and their typical clientele looks like they just walked out of a crack palace, then they're probably not that great. Generally, you should avoid the ones in the rough part of town.

[abunaitoo]

Pawn shops here cannot sell firearms.
Kind of shows how trusted they are.
I know a guy who owns one.
He says he doesn't do much pawns. Mostly collateral loans. Seems like the same thing to me.
He kind of likes to skirt the law.
Sells lose tobacco, so no cigarette tax.
Had a few gaming rooms, with supposedly legal game machines.
He's never had a problem with LE, so he must be doing something correct.
Another one I know of, is owned by a retired cop.
Went there only once.
I'm sure he was a crook.

[richhodg66]

We have three in our little town, all of which I have bought a gun or two from, all are honest. One in particular is a third generation family business is he is a respected member of the community. He's always done me right. He also looks out for the other guy, in the past, he's had obvious attempts from people to do straw man purchases and after he shuts them down, he's on the phone to the other gun dealers to be careful. Most of his business is guns, but he does other stuff too. A while back, someone brought in some professional photographs of the town from the 1880s or so, he bought them and turned around and donated them to the county historical society and museum. Great guy and everybody in town thinks well of him.

[Petrol & Powder]

Pawn Shops are interesting places. They are only as good as the people that run them. They can range from excellent to shady.
I know some pawn shop owners that are honest men and I know some that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them.

I've never pawned anything but I've purchased items in pawn shops. You must know what the item is worth in order to get any type of decent deal. It makes no sense to buy a used tool in a pawn shop for the same amount as a new one in a retail store. Same holds true for guns.
I rarely see good used guns in pawn shops and the few I've encountered were almost always priced over what they were worth to me.

Pawn shops make money three different ways: !. They make loans, charge interest on those loans and hold an item of value as collateral. 2. If the loan isn't paid in time, they sell the item held as collateral for more than the amount of the loan. 3. They buy property outright and sell that property for more than they paid for it.

That third category is actually the bulk of most pawn shop businesses.

[NyFirefighter357]

We don't have any local pawn shops, never even heard of a pawn shop until I went to Colorado. The closest to me aren't even in NY but Ct. Doesn't matter as they can't sell guns here or in CT and mostly buy gold & cash checks. The one by my work 40 miles from here is small can't be more than 600sqft. I've never been in a pawn shop either.

[pworley1]

We have 3 in town and all are good to deal with. I have bought many tools and guns from them, never at their asking price, they have also help people recover their stolen items.

[Tom W.]

We have several in this city, and a whole lot more across the river in Columbus. They range from some that I won't even slow down when driving by to a small chain that is clean and sells both new and used firearms, but I've never seen junk firearms in their stores. The small chain will dicker on the prices, and I bought several new handguns from there. There's one that's a mile from my house that I bought a pristine Colt revolver from, but if my across the street neighbor hadn't been working there I probably would never have gone in there.

What really surprised me is that there is one LGS that I know of in Columbus, and 99% of all firearm sales around here are either pawn shop, internet sales or 25 or so miles away....

[GhostHawk]

My wife and I had started visiting a local pawn shop some 2 miles away fairly regularly on friday evenings.
"Date night" was a trip to the pawn shop then supper out someplace.

First shop was a chain, got sold, new owners did not want to deal in guns. So we quit going.

Some 5 months later we stuck our noses into a new pawn shop just 4 blocks away. Much to our surprise we found most of our friendly staff from the old place. They did not like it either. Setup their own shop.

We go regularly.

Typical items marked at 15$ will be charged to us at 10$. No drama, no fuss, they throw out a figure, I nod either yes or no. Hand over the card. Very seldom say no.

Wife looks for Black Hills Gold Jewelry and interesting items. I look at tools, knives, guns.

Brand new bow saws, 3 in a bundle, 6$ which they knocked down to 5$. Hard to complain about that.
Less than a year old Minn Kota Trolling Motor, 44 lb thrust stern mount, camo paint job. Goes for 2-300$ new, this one did not have a mark on it, no indication that it had ever seen use. 100$ out the door.

[RU shooter]

We have very few and none sell guns . But judging by the prices they have listed on their 20yr old or older "vintage" bear and Jennings compound bows I wouldn't be a buyer anyways . Way way over priced . Not worth my time or effort trying to haggle .that polished turd is a bar of gold in their eyes.

[Reddirt62]

Done go in them much anymore. Years back I found one that would look up the price of a snapon tool and sell it for half....those days are long gone. No the norm is -10% retail. Only bought one gun. S&W 686 no dash. Nice pistol.

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[osteodoc08]

Pawn Shops are interesting places. They are only as good as the people that run them. They can range from excellent to shady.
I know some pawn shop owners that are honest men and I know some that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them.

I've never pawned anything but I've purchased items in pawn shops. You must know what the item is worth in order to get any type of decent deal. It makes no sense to buy a used tool in a pawn shop for the same amount as a new one in a retail store. Same holds true for guns.
I rarely see good used guns in pawn shops and the few I've encountered were almost always priced over what they were worth to me.

Pawn shops make money three different ways: !. They make loans, charge interest on those loans and hold an item of value as collateral. 2. If the loan isn't paid in time, they sell the item held as collateral for more than the amount of the loan. 3. They buy property outright and sell that property for more than they paid for it.

That third category is actually the bulk of most pawn shop businesses.

This right here. The bulk of their clientele are folks that work paycheck to paycheck, regardless of source, and rely on the pawn store for quick cash.

A good friend of mine in college, who I “lost in divorce”, had most of his family in the lawn business. I’ve been there in the store with them to help out or to visit and their clientele was always, um, interesting. He and his family were hard working and honest but the pawn business is the pawn business.

[bedbugbilly]

I haven't been in one for several years. One I went in out in AZ dealt with guns as well as ammo. He had quite a rack of used rifles - I almost choked when I saw the prices on them. About twice what they should have been. I asked about several of them and the guy had a chip on his shoulder attitude - I just chalked that up to him probably having to deal with folks who were trying to take advantage of him. He warmed up a little after a while and he wasn't a bad guy. I ended up buying a Browning T bolt 22 rifle from him at what I felt was a fair price to both of us - not what was marked on the tag though.

My wife had never been in a pawn shop so we went in to another one in a different part of Tucson. She got very uneasy with the clientele that was coming and going. Funny thing - I never knew there were so many pieces of used tools available for pawn. Most of it was obviously stuff that had been ripped off of construction sites or out of someone's work truck. Most of the people pawning those items were kids/young people - many of them obviously on something. We left after only a few minutes.

There used to be, maybe still is, a show called Pawn Stars (I think that was th name) that was centered around a pawn shop in the Detroit area. I had a few pieces of my Civil War collection up on fleabay when I was liquidating it. I got a call from one of the producers of the show that had seen one of my items I had up on fleabay and she wanted me to take it down and come over to Detroit to be on the show - acting like I wanted to pawn the item - IIRC, it was my Civil War surgeon's kit. I asked her what in the heck I would want to do that and her answer was "so you can be on TV". Really? I then asked her how it worked and she laid it all out. I pretended to be hard of hearing and kept asking her . . . "You want me to be a porn star?". I finally told her what I thought of their little scheme and hung up on her. Obviously, they troll for interesting items and people to be on these shows.

[jdfoxinc]

Most of the "sales" on American Guns were of that type. One Colt Peace Maker actually belonged to the owners collection. The 'seller' was just a local customer. Mr Wyat is where he belongs.

[Rick Hodges]

The main pawn shop in our town has a few well worn guns prices like pristine Civil war collectables. I have only been in there a couple of times since I retired and saw nothing that was of any interest to me.

[pertnear]

Not many bargains at a hock-shop, but I did just do a FFL transfer at a local for $10. Smoothest & cheapest I ever paid!

[2ndAmendmentNut]

Local pawn stores have almost all junk and absolutely no deals or even reasonable prices on their firearms. Lots of high points, badly modified military surplus rifles, and mossberg shotguns. Years ago I saw a stainless 4” Colt python, timing was out and every screw head was badly damaged as though somebody had tried to dissemble the gun with a pneumatic wrench. Asking price was almost $2000. That poor Colt sat around for a while until The Walking Dead became popular and then somebody must have bought it because, “it’s just like the one on TV.”


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