I hate pawn shops

[two fingers]

I avoid pawn shops because I think they trade on human misfortune.

Meh. Pretty much any business can say that. If a business never sold to those who were experiencing misfortune, many businesses would fold. Besides, lots of folks who sell to pawn shops just don't feel like messing with CL or yard sales. They just want to get rid of junk and get a few bucks for it. Watch Pawn Stars sometime. The majority of those people aren't poor or in trouble. They are just trying to get some cash for something they no longer want.

 

[MegaSwing]

^^^
IME—and I've bought and sold a lot of high-dollar things on the retail level—you can offer a seller 2-3 times what a pawnshop offers on any given item, and STILL be paying them a pittance. I suppose what they do is good business, numbers-wise, but it still reeks of taking undue advantage of vulnerable people.

 

[LAST_C]

I live in Southern California and have to agree, the pawn shops I've visited have a lot of crap that's not properly stored and want like-new money for used gear. I found a Peavey Millenium bass, used for $179.99. Amazon has it for $169.99, new, shipping free. I've lost all hope of finding something good at a PS.

 

[tgriley62]

We have 3 pawns in the town I live in. One carries no musical instruments at all. The second is both a music/pawn shop with new and used but, the owner wants almost new prices for the used. The 3rd hardly ever has any bass's but twice I have found great deals at this one. Two years ago picked up the white Foundation for $150 with case & just this Thursday picked up the Fury for $50

 

[Torkk]

Next time I go, ill have to take a picture. Y'all will Crap your pants at the mess

 

[bassbenj]

I live in Southern California and have to agree, the pawn shops I've visited have a lot of crap that's not properly stored and want like-new money for used gear. I found a Peavey Millenium bass, used for $179.99. Amazon has it for $169.99, new, shipping free. I've lost all hope of finding something good at a PS.

Around here it depends. Some pawn shops actually specialize in musical stuff and at times have some very interesting things. (Like G&L bass, etc.) BUT those guys are VERY well versed in the prices and value of things. So there are no stupid priced bargains. But if they have something you can't live without, you usually can get it at pretty much the going rate. The ones that don't do music are sort of a waste of time. I've usually done much better at the local Music-go-round. Where oddly enough I bought my cool Karera guitar, whereas the pawn shop in town (which had bought the entire Karera stock from the warehouse when they went out of business) didn't have crap. Go figure.

 

[Michael rogers]

My experience with pawn shops is they have crap, mostly low end, and want top dollar. Worse is the big chain pawnshops in the area. They are locked into their crappy prices. It's a 1 in 10,000 proposition to find something good I have found. And when there is a good guitar or bass, it's higher than street value. Totally geared toward suckers...

 

[Ironbar]

The pawn shops around here suck, too, but for different reasons. They won't haggle on prices of pawned items, nor will they haggle on the prices they just things at. They also put everything up for well above the going rates...and then it sits there for years. They're to the point now where they have garbage gear that nobody wants but they can't move and they won't take even the slightest hit on their profit to move it.

Amen. There's a pawn shop here in the Portland area that has a bass amp I'd love to own. They want about $400.00 over its actual value. They've been advertising it on Craigslist for well over a year now. Not a budge on the price. Most pawn shops in this area offer nothing but garbage at jacked up prices.

 

[Haji]

There are some deals to be found at prawn shops here, but for the most part, stuff is priced about where it would be anywhere else for it's condition. I've done pretty well a couple times, and not a couple other times. The bass that got me back into playing in January of this year was a prawn shop find, a rather banged up Ibby GSR200 and a little Peavey practice amp. I got them for...just over $150 out the door, I think. In the end I lost about $20 reselling them because of the money I spent on a set up (I've since learned to do that myself), but I reinvested that into a Sterling SUB SB4 from FB. I grabbed an Ibby SR305 for...$65, I think... in rough shape thinking I'd fix it up, and haven't yet. But there's a shop down in the ghetto that doesn't get much in musical gear other than practice amps and acoustic guitars where I found my Ampeg SVT-3 Pro for $299 because I waited for it to go on clearance. I also nabbed a Digitech Bass Squeeze compressor about a week ago for $20. That one I'm keeping.

The thing I keep finding is that investing my time in fixing stuff makes the investment about what it would be if I'd just bought one in better shape that I didn't have to sink work time in.

 

[Humbled]

It's the age of internet and Pawn Shop folks can go online in an instant and know what something is likely to sell for.

Where the bargains are to be found is where instruments have gone through generational changes and some are considerably more desirable than others, even while bearing the same model number. Yamaha FG 340 acoustic guitars are one example: Japanese production models fully bound with herringbone three piece backs are way more valuable than the subsequent Korean or Indonesian-made models, and the Pawn Shop guys just don't take the time to figure that out. Sometimes it's all about who takes the time to do their research.

 

[lobster57]

Yeah, it is sad. They're more interested in Xboxes, controllers and crap like that. And I find with the pawns around my area, that they're asking as much for their second hand basses and guitars as you'd pay for a brand new one with a warranty! I've pointed this out to them on a few occasions and their response is usually: "Well, go buy it somewhere else then!". I think that either they're idiots (or they think their customers are), or they just don't care. I pretty much avoid the pawn shops these days.

They make their money with their predatory loans, anything they can sell is gravy, so they have no real incentive to drop prices or haggle. On of my local shops has had a trans-orange fender J-bass hanging up for at least 5 years. i want that bass badly, but they want CAD$1200 for it. I can buy one new for about that and have a warranty, a setup etc...

 

[Iridescentone]

I've never had any luck at pawn shops, so I don't bother looking.

That said, I know a guy who recently scored a nice Guild 602 (?), the goofy star-shaped one, at a pawn shop for $399. In great shape w/OHSC.

And a guitard friend of mine stumbled into an orig '57 ano Pbass at an antique store a few months ago, for $1500.

Both of these dudes spend half their lives cruising pawn shops, flea markets, garage sales, etc. Ugh, I could never do that.

 

[Iridescentone]

Meh. Pretty much any business can say that. If a business never sold to those who were experiencing misfortune, many businesses would fold. Besides, lots of folks who sell to pawn shops just don't feel like messing with CL or yard sales. They just want to get rid of junk and get a few bucks for it. Watch Pawn Stars sometime. The majority of those people aren't poor or in trouble. They are just trying to get some cash for something they no longer want.

True. What that TV show doesn't like us to know....is that most of their customers are gambling junkies who need their slot machine fix right away. Like the poor slobs showing up at 2:00 AM to dump their Rolex for pennies 'cos they've already blown their kid's college funds and maxed out their credit cards.

Las Vegas has to be THE BEST location on Earth for a pawn shop.

 

[Haji]

I'm gonna be in Vegas next month for a trade show with a couple days before and part of the day after before I fly out. Think I gotta hit up my Vegas friends to see where the prawn shops are near UNLV. Seems like prawn shops near colleges have all the music gear.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

True. What that TV show doesn't like us to know....is that most of their customers are gambling junkies who need their slot machine fix right away. Like the poor slobs showing up at 2:00 AM to dump their Rolex for pennies 'cos they've already blown their kid's college funds and maxed out their credit cards.

Las Vegas has to be THE BEST location on Earth for a pawn shop.

Tunica, MS probably ain't a bad place either since it is full of casinos too.

 

[BazzTard]

Watch Pawn Stars sometime. The majority of those people aren't poor or in trouble. They are just trying to get some cash for something they no longer want.

Really? the Pawn Stars I watch is always full of poor people trying to flog stolen laptops where they can't even log into it coz they don't have the password lol, then they yell 'you mofos better give me my $200, beatch", .......I don't think those people are well off lol

 

[Stick_Player]

... they have no interest in anything but the $$.

So?

 

[Haji]

That is kinda the reason businesses exist.

 

[BruceWane]

Really? the Pawn Stars I watch is always full of poor people trying to flog stolen laptops where they can't even log into it coz they don't have the password lol, then they yell 'you mofos better give me my $200, beatch", .......I don't think those people are well off lol

You're watching "Hardcore Pawn", shot at a shop in Detroit.

There are some shops like Pawn Stars in most cities, located near wealthier neighborhoods, but in my experience 99% of them are much more like the shop in Hardcore Pawn.

 

[SirMjac28]

I still have a fondness for pawn shops because I remember when they were the only place to get a decent deal on gear and that's when many mom and pops had their take it or leave it price policies.