"Oh come on, Pawn Shop Dude!"
 

Saw a well used Peavey Foundation 5 today. Actually, it's been in this shop for several years. It has dings and finish wear, the maple neck has a lot of wear on the back and fretboard edges. The pots are all scratchy and missing knobs. It's just plain nasty. The tag's original price was 199.99, marked down to 150.00. I respectfully offered him 75.00 so I could rescue it. He said he would "eat the tax" but he would barely break even.

I said (respectfully,) maybe if it was in very good condition, but this one needs a lot of TLC. He declined, he couldn't lose any money on it.

No way on earth did he pay $150 for that Foundation.

You should have told him to "eat" something else and left.

Oh, I know. He probably loaned 50.00 on it.

He must have gotten his business practises from Pawn Stars. He wants to buy everything for $50 and sell it for quadruple to buy price.

Diet Dr. Pepper through the nose hurts!!

Probably not, but it's likely worth $150.

I worked in a pawn shop for four years. If he did a loan on it, he paid $25 tops...if he outright bought it, maybe $40. Four years in that business got me to a point where I don't even have the conscience to shop at one!
:scowl:

I hate it when people look you in the eye and lie to your face.


But that aside, pawn shops don't approach people and ask them to pawn/sell their gear. You have to search out a pawn shop to do busines with them. And when a customer gets a lowball offer, he doesn't have to do the deal.

Pawn shop or otherwise, if it's been hanging on a peg for a year then you've lost money. Might as well give it away.

Even if he only paid $50 for it, if it's been in his shop for a few years he's already lost money on it. He could have loaned that same $50 several times over.

Beat me to it.

I went through something similar with craigslist and bicycles. My Trek commuter got stolen, and to save money replacing it I checked online for used bikes. Many of them seemed stolen, so I could not find it within to buy any of them.

What gave them away as being stolen? I sure would like to know

Expensive bikes hold value pretty well comparatively, so seeing a relatively new bike (five years or less) selling for less than a third of its original price was always suspect. Also, folks who spend more than a few hundred on a bike usually have at least a passing interest in the techie bits, so when a listing would say really generic stuff or something like "I got it to ride in the park and never did but it has real nice gears" it also raised an eyebrow.

A dead giveaway is one wheel being a cheap replacement or even sometimes different at all. It probably meant someone forgot to lock through the frame and the wheel got cut or left chained to whatever.

But still, price was the biggest questionmark. A $1000 bike even if ridden a lot but maintained should still resale for more than $300-400 depending on the age and make. Bikes of that price just don't wear down that quickly.

Poor Foundation bass! Back in my guitard days (about 20 years ago), I had a band mate who had one. It was a solid bass but it didn't get any respect from anyone in the band. I thought about rescuing it and taking it for myself back then but never did.

It's sad that it's going to just sit on the hanger at the pawn shop.