Pawn shop today..

LeeBower

LeeBower

Joined
Aug 25, 2005
Messages
2,276
Hope all is well around here, have not been on in a long while.. Work is owning my these days.

Popped into a pawn shop by my house today and was looking in the counter, not expecting much and I am looking and all of a sudden I see a mycarta Becker handle going into a kydex sheath.. then another Becker handle.. then an ESEE.. and a Tops. :eek: First thing I think is, wow I hope someone from the forums didn't get robbed. Turned out to be a 5 and 15, the 5 had mycarta handles and both had black kydex. The Izula II had nice scales on it to. I wasn't sure what the Tops was, but it had orange scales and kydex too. Hope no one lost it, but if you are on the NW side of San Antonio, there are some nice knives in there for good prices.
 
Never been in a pawn shop, mostly cause Im afraid to park my car outside of the ones Ive seen lol. I guess I need to get over it.
 
Gotta love pawn shops. Not always good deals, but sometimes....I try to stay away because of the sometimes. Detrimental effects on my personal finances (such as they aren't) frequently occur in pawn shops. Happy/sad effects, but still....
Cool that you found some Beckers in yours, Lee. I'm never that lucky....but I still find plenty of stuff that is a good deal - that I don't need.
 
I don't think I have ever bought anything from a pawn shop. Crappy crap and crappy prices. I've even tried negotiating and they were firm on a crappy old boom box that I wanted for work...a beater. Cheaper new at Wally world. Maybe it's just this state but I've been to plenty all over NC and looks like they're all over priced on everything... Esp old beat up stuff. I rarely visit them any more, but maybe once every other month I Check one out here and there hoping for a cool Knife, but never any knives worth a crap, and what is there of course is about retail and worn out or busted. Occasionally I'll find a leatherman at a good deal just to find out it's broke or missing something.
 
noice - probably just a flipper
 
Good thinking to post this in case it matches knives missing in a theft. I love when thieves get caught.
 
I happened into the pawn shop here in town (after having not stepped foot in one in 20 years) and found a very good conditioned Camillus TL-29. It was only 10 bucks, so I snatched it up very quickly. I've gone by the place 3 times since then asking for knives, haha.
 
When I was in LRAR, I used to enjoy checking out pawn shops on a regular basis. Got some good deals (none were knives), and I still have most of the items today - 15 yrs later.
Now that I'm back in Upstate NY, I think about stopping in from time to time; but, frankly, the places are pretty seedy looking.
 
hhmoore said:
When I was in LRAR, I used to enjoy checking out pawn shops on a regular basis. Got some good deals (none were knives), and I still have most of the items today - 15 yrs later.
Now that I'm back in Upstate NY, I think about stopping in from time to time; but, frankly, the places are pretty seedy looking.
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The "seedy" ones sometimes have the best deals. Why? Because everyone avoids them because they look seedy and the owners are sometimes willing to dicker. Now, there's seedy and then there's SEEDY. If the shop looks run down but the general neighborhood is OK or adequate, I'll check them out. If the rest of the area is as bad or worse, I'll pass on the place.

One of the keys to not getting burned at a pawn shop is to know what the average general worth of what you're looking for is usually priced at.

Back before fleabay, you could run across some REALLY good deals because sometimes neither the pawner nor the pawn shop owner knew what some things were really worth. Since the advent of fleabay, though, pawn shop owners have started using sales history on fleabay to determine what an item might be worth. They now, usually, offer between 25% and 50% of what the AVERAGE fleabay high/low selling prices are. Say the high sales price is $100 and the low is $50. The high/low average is $75. They will then (again, USUALLY) offer the seller $20 to $35, max. When the pawn shop goes to sell the item, they usually "key" on the item, or price it as double what they paid for it. They may even triple it, if the item is usually a fast mover.

I NEVER just pay the advertised price. If I consider buying something, I'll make an offer of at least 50% less that the list price. Then, it "Let the dickering begin." Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.:D

If I offer 50% off and the guy says "Sold" before my lips quit flapping, I KNOW the guy had way more than a 50% mark-up on it.:o
 
zzyzzogeton said:
Back before fleabay, you could run across some REALLY good deals because sometimes neither the pawner nor the pawn shop owner knew what some things were really worth. Since the advent of fleabay, though, pawn shop owners have started using sales history on fleabay to determine what an item might be worth.
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My fleabay skills are obviously lacking. How do you find the sales history?
 
Never bought anything from a pawn shop but I use my local pawn shop for gun transfers because they're close and cheap.
 
Lots of pawn shops here. I've figured out which ones are worth a stop and which can pack sand. There's one that I check regularly and the guys behind the counter will usually knock $10 or $20 off the price of whatever gun I'm looking at without my asking (the guns are usually under $200 anyway).
 
DunkEm said:
My fleabay skills are obviously lacking. How do you find the sales history?
Click to expand...

Just to the right of the SEARCH button, there is "Advanced" in a little gray font. There you get tons of options by which you may sort a search. If you do a search at the "normal" level, and THEN click the Advanced link, you search criteria will carry over for WHAT you are looking for. You'll still have to manually select the Advanced search features.
 
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