You have to love the absurdity of pawn shops

[maroast]

On my way home I stopped at a local pawn shop know for their crappy guns at ridiculous prices….I frequently do this to amuse myself as I have no life.

So I ask the employee if I could see the AK-47 on the far back wall. He reaches for the clapped-out Mosin Nagant with the $279 price tag on it.

“Uh, no, the gun next to it please”

He hands the gun over without clearing it and just turns around to walk away. I drop the mag and reach for the charging handle….but its not there! “what the…” I think to myself. Then I realized that the ‘thing’ on the foregrip is a pump! It was a Romanian Par-1 pump action ‘AK 74’ for $599. :banghead: Oh, and it had rust all over it. I just started to chuckle and handed the rifle right back, thanked him and promptly left.


Is anyone actually finding deals at these places?

 

[Kind of Blued]

That first sentence was hilarious.

I'll give pawn shops a chance. I just offer them what the gun is actually worth. I'll either leave the store happy with a new gun, or be told "no". So far, however, I've never left a pawn shop with a gun I just bought.

 

[atblis]

Yeah

Yeah you can, but it's usually because they have no clue what it is.

For instance, the "Portuguese Mauser" I bought for 50 bucks out the door turned out to be a Finnish Mosin Nagant.

 

[wvshooter]

The only thing I ever found worth worth buying at a pawn shop was a Baby Martin guitar. It was in excellent condition and the pawn shop didn't know what they had because I bought it for about $200 less than it was worth. I traded it within a month and always felt it was in the shop because it had been stolen. I mean, who allows their Baby Martin to end up in a pawn shop?

I quit looking for guns in pawn shops a long time ago. It's just junk and sky high prices. How do they unload that crap.

 

[shiftyer1]

You really need to realize one thing. Pawnbrokers are not paid or trained very well. This brings an I don't care attitude. Also it's normally younger people who are attracted to this job. Some company's don't allow or are very restricted on internet useage for research.

And last but not least. Pawnshops have repeat customers who ALWAYS pay back the loan and of course this leads to high $ loans. Loans that are way to much but hey bills good for it. Well this time bills broke and the Marlin model 60 that you loaned 150 on(cuz he'll pay it back) comes out for sale. It probably gets priced at 300 to try to come out even.

It's funny how people brag about the wonderful deal they got on XXXXX and the idiots didn't know what they had. But complain when things are overpriced out of the same lack of knowledge.

 

[atblis]

Local pawn shop pays 40% of the supposed value of a firearm.

 

[Rshooter]

Pawn shops out here know the value of the guns. I occasionally used to go in to see if someone dropped in a gem. I made a counter offer on a used gun going for a new price one time and was told the price is the price take it or leave it. I asked why the price is so high and the guy had the nerve to say it was because the price of gas.

 

[shiftyer1]

I should probably add that i've been a pawnbroker for 10 yrs. As far as pricing if something is worth $100 I loan $40 and price it $89.99 hoping for $80. A GOOD customer might get $60 and you see what will happen when it comes out for sale.

 

[jhco50]

I don't have that problem with one paticular pawnshop. My son-in-law is the assistant manager. He is pretty good on his prices, but being related I get a swingin' deal on what ever I get there. HE got me a Colt King Cobra in like new condition for $300. He swapped me a Winchester Model 12 in excellent condition for my old Stevens double 12ga.

I shall keep this boy. LOL

 

[maroast]

Come to think of it, I did get a smoking deal at a pawn shop once. I bought brand new Eddy Merckx track bicycle for $500 with full campy record track group.... I then turned around and sold it for $1500 on ebay a month later.

 

[danprkr]

I shall keep this boy. LOL

I would, and does he have a sister for my kid?

My experience in pawn shops is that they frequently ask new money for old junk, and sit on it. Until times get bad a lot of stuff comes out for sale.

I think (and our pawnbroker may be able to verify this) that it has to do with not wanting an empty store for us lookers. That way when we need money we might stop in and let him make money on our needs.

Trust me it can happen. Couple a divorce with the sudden emergence of a major illness in your life and you'll suddenly see the need to borrow from anyone who will help you pay your electric bill.

My father is friends with a guy that owns several pawn shops, and when the junk overwhelms the stores he doesn't mark it down, he takes it to a flea market to mark it down so his customers don't just wait. Of course he can't do that with the guns, but I've gotten some tools that way at a decent price.

 

[GojuBrian]

My dad bought me a couple of guns at pawnshops when I was growing up. As I remember they were pretty good deals.

I have yet to find a reasonable price on a gun at at pawnshop since then. I have found several used guns priced above new gun retail. It is good for a laugh though. All I can guess is the completly ignorant new gun guys buy them.

 

[shiftyer1]

Well when your totally down and out, the bank won't loan ya money and you have no where else to turn I will give you a short term loan on an item. Will your bank loan you $200 for a week and only charge $15? Is it even worth the hassel? I'll get u in and out it a couple minutes and I could care less about your credit score.

Just remember that the people that come in to buy the item all want a smokin deal. Which makes what the item will sell for less then normal. If you want to sell the item cut out the middle man.

I never loan enough and things are always priced to high. It's hard to please everyone.

 

[kyo]

yea this guy at this pawn shop in my city was selling a used taurus 1911 for more than you can buy one new even on gunbroker. I wanted it but not for the price he was wanting for it

 

[danprkr]

shiftyer1
I never loan enough and things are always priced to high. It's hard to please everyone.

Always thought it would be a good business to be in. Just never had the cash to get started. But, I imagine you have to have a thick skin.

Trust me I floated a pistol once for several months when I first got sick, and my X had cleaned out all 'our' bank accounts. My pawnbroker was my savior.

 

[danprkr]

Actually, I have guy in a smaller town that I drive through that has decent (not great, but decent) prices on his new guns. Problem is he keeps bankers hours, and I'm either to early or to late most times to stop. The times I've stopped there was never that good a selection of used guns. And he didn't have anything that excited me. But seemed a good guy selling at a decent price.

 

[cchris]

Gun-dealing pawn shops differ from gun & pawn shops. The one in Clemson doesn't often take used guns, but they'll buy used [insert generic non-firearm item here]. The gun part seems pretty separate from the rest of the store, as they are notorious for their gun selection.

Places like this, depending on the place, can have better deals than retail stores. For example, my 11-48 cost me $300 there, with the guarantee that it would fire or they'd give me store credit toward another gun - not a problem, since they had some good guns there. The store down the road was selling used Sig P6's for $500, and for the same price, the gun & pawn shop had a remanufactured P226 for cheaper, and a P228 for less than $800 (cheapest I've seen for a new 228).

Make sure you can differentiate between a pawn shop that sells guns, and a "gun & pawn shop".

 

[Ohio Gun Guy]

I stopped in one a few weeks ago, mostly due to some stories posted on here. Well not this shop. They had el-crapola stuff for more that what what is sells for new; not by just a little bit either.

 

[jpwilly]

Most of the Pawn shops here in AZ I've been to are filled with decent firearms at lousy prices sold by scumbags that doen't know the first thing about customer service. I'd rather pay top doller at Cabela's or some other local gun shop save some doe and get treated well.

 

[armoredman]

A Nice Pawn in Casa Grande is a decent little store with good people who do know something of firearms, and even they stock some unusual peices new, to keep it interesting. Only a few guns I thought were a bit high, but not as blatantly wild as shops down in Tucson. Other prices were actually low on a few.
Yes, I have had to pawn in the past - sucks, but sometimes you have no choice.

 

[Dr. Fresh]

My local pawn shop isn't bad. Their prices range from good to reasonable to slightly overpriced.

I've purchased 4 firearms from them, including a Hi-Point 995 that was broken for $60, even after I told them they could get it fixed for free.

$60 got me a nice NEF single-shot 12 gauge (about the going rate I guess).

 

[FROGO207]

There can be a large swing in pawn broker prices. One has rusty Iron for gold quality prices, across town the better one has some really good prices. Some of the best deals on firearms I have found. The thing is the other "goods" in the shop are all way overpriced! Go figure. Recently found a Remington 7400 in 308 for $165 and a universal M1 carbine that was NIB condition for $200.

 

[AllAmerican]

Ive bought my last 10 guns at a pawn shop. Yes, I have gotten great deals.

Chinese SKS in great condition = $250
Never fired Remington 770 in.270 with Bushnell scope = $250
Remington 597 = $100
Marlin 60 = $100
Ruger 10/22 = $100
All of these are in excellent condition.

Those are good deals IMO.

I just bought a Fender MIM Strat there a few weeks back for $150 too. LOL

 

[SteelyNirvana]

Only good deal I've gotten at a pawn shop is when I bought my 3" SP101. Story behind the gun was a guy bought it, ran a box of ammo through it and decided he didn't like it and put it on his closet shelf. Few years later, guy got hard-up for money and sold it to them. I believe the "only a box through it" because the barrel looked factory clean exp. just a slight streak of copper and the gun still had factory oil weeping from it's joints.

 

[kentucky bucky]

Sometimes they have no clue what is in the rack and you can every now and then find a treasure.