Down here at the pawn shop

[Undertoad]

Good one just now, and -- well this is what happens all day long.

Crazy woman comes in and says she pawned a ring two weeks ago and would like it back. Does she have the original pawn ticket? No, they didn't give her one.

Well we give a yellow pawn ticket to everyone who pawns something. It's all very carefully controlled. She now says she sold it to us. Well, I explain, if she sold it to us it is not even here. It's in our storage facility which is off-site.* She demands that she MUST have her ring. "You puttin' one over on me!"

She spends a good five minutes going through her wallet full of crap. This is another thing with these folk: the wallet stuffed full of papers, receipts, and other crap. Every single customer has this, and they all spend many minutes looking through it.

She produces one of our cards with the details written on it. We gave her $4 for a silver ring. That too is typical. Silver goes for a lot less than gold, and when we give people a number for silver jewelry, they usually hate us. It's just based on what the stuff weighs, we weigh everything, and we give everyone the same price on the same amount of silver. A sterling silver ring is simply not worth shit. It will weigh nothing, have no value and we will be doing the people a favor by paying them for their shitty silver ring.

And when we give someone a card, it means they sold the thing to us and wanted some documentation. There's no receipt on a sale. (We actually get the receipt, since we are the ones who bought it.)

So I explain three times that her ring is long gone and she only gets madder and thinks we swindled her. As she leaves she says "I ought to sue your asses!" and I say "We welcome your attorney's phone call."

In this case the store was full of people and I could tell they all understood what was going on: that this woman was profoundly ignorant and crazy and had no idea what happened. The next guy in line wanted a money order and he just shook his head and muttered, "crazy woman."


*Now here's the thing: the ring is definitely here, in our massive safe. By LAW, we have to keep all goods sold to us for 90 days. And there is no storage facility. That is a polite lie, because if they think their thing is here, they get even more indignant. We tell people that a whole different set of guys pull all the stuff and melt it down immediately. That makes them angry at an imaginary crew and lets us off the hook.

[jimhelm]

You don't really have to hold it for 90 days do you? I think it's 3 weeks to the moon for gold or silver.

If you had to hold for 90 days, and you bought gold. by the time you sold it, the market price could have dropped below what you paid for it.

[Undertoad]

Yup, it's regulated that way. This is so the cops have a chance to come around and find the stolen stuff. This is also why pawn shops offer much less than you can get on eBay. We store it, keep track of it all that time, and we take the risk that it will be worth much less when we can actually move it.

It's worse on a pawn where we sit on stuff for 5 months. That's why a pawn shop is not the ideal place to sell your stuff... unless you want fast money. We HAVE to offer much less than eBay or Craigslist, or anyplace else really.

And if ya think gold is a risk... think 50" TVs, or tablets like the Nook or Kindle. The price on all that is dropping fast.

[jimhelm]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Yup, it's regulated that way. This is so the cops have a chance to come around and find the stolen stuff. This is also why pawn shops offer much less than you can get on eBay. We store it, keep track of it all that time, and we take the risk that it will be worth much less when we can actually move it.

It's worse on a pawn where we sit on stuff for 5 months. That's why a pawn shop is not the ideal place to sell your stuff... unless you want fast money. We HAVE to offer much less than eBay or Craigslist, or anyplace else really.

And if ya think gold is a risk... think 50" TVs, or tablets like the Nook or Kindle. The price on all that is dropping fast.

Huh. Must fall under his pawn license rules I guess. My buddy that buys gold only has a 5 day hold in pa. 3 weeks in nj... Then it goes to the smelter.

He has to fingerprint and photograph his sellers now, though.

Hes still fighting the cops over $3500 in confiscated gold that he didn't have documentation for.

[jimhelm]

He was able to contact the lady who sold it and get the paperwork, but a day late.

[Undertoad]

Ah hell, you know, sometimes the items are amazing. A guy just came in with about 8 old 10" 78 RPM records in GREAT condition. Among them was a set of 4 albums from Sidor Belarsky, Yiddish folk singer. They looked awesome. But the shop doesn't generally deal in such things, unless it can prove a value - and I just couldn't find a value on them.

He only wanted $10. I was just about to do the deal for myself, but I can't even afford to transport them around this week.

[Undertoad]

The most exquisite racism exists in the ghetto. This morning a woman comes in and right in the middle of her transaction, she asks where the horns are. Well we have a few saxes over along that wall, and -- oh. She means the horns on top of Alan's head since he is a Jew.

~

This afternoon a bunch of young punks comes in wanting to sell things. We can't deal with anyone under 18 so we tell them they are out of luck. They leave us with a hearty "fuck you". We hate the young punks but it is not possible to just throw them out whenever they appear.

~

In today's game of "Retarded or High", a gentleman comes in with four keys and wants one copy of each. He speaks VERY slowly and deliberately, as all RorH contestants do. Of course I am very careful when making keys, and I make his copies and lay them out in front of him. "The gold ones, on top, are the copies." He takes forever to sort out which are which because he doesn't want to mix them up. Five minutes later he's back. "I only have 3 key copies, I asked for 4." At this point I make an executive decision just to remake his fourth key again, and not charge him, because he won't understand anyway, and probably doesn't have another $2 for another key. I am labeling this gentleman Retarded.

[Trilby]

The retarded ones always need a lot of keys.


they have a lot of girlfriends.

[jimhelm]

Well now I know where to get my keys copied.

[sexobon]

Down at the Pawn Shop (to the tune of Under the Boardwalk)

Oh when the people come in and try to pawn something used
And their tempers get so hot, you wish you were weren't so abused
Down at the pawn shop, you must come and see, hey
Behind the counter with my laptop, I'll be listin' on eBay

(Down at the pawn shop) Prices second to none
(Down at the pawn shop) We'll be havin' some fun
(Down at the pawn shop) People making appeals
(Down at the pawn shop) We'll be making deals
Down at the pawn shop, pawn shop

From the front door you hear the happy sound of a ringing bell
Mmm hmm, anyone can come in and buy the good things we sell
Down at the pawn shop, you must come and see, hey
Behind the counter with my laptop, I'll be listin' on eBay

(Down at the pawn shop) Prices second to none
(Down at the pawn shop) We'll be havin' some fun
(Down at the pawn shop) People making appeals
(Down at the pawn shop) We'll be making deals

Down at the pawn shop, pawn shop

[ZenGum]

Biddin' on a clock on e-bayyyy
watchin' tiiime roll away..

[Undertoad]

There are a couple things that it's hard to learn, and one of those things is the values of things we bring in to pawn or buy.

After many years, Alan knows what he pays on every single thing. Student clarinet? We buy em at $50. Garmin Nuvi? $15. A Milwaukee right angle grinder? $75. 32-inch TV? Pawn at $50, buy at $80, don't take without remote control. Gift card? Buy at 50%, except JC Penney 30%.

To even know what each thing is, and where its values are headed and why, is really kind of remarkable. To catch up in a month's time is impossible, and that's why I goofed this week when I offered a guy $75 for his student clarinet.

The clarinet itself may go on eBay for $150, or may sell in the shop for $140, so it's not a terrible error. But we will probably lose profit and take a risk due to my error.

Alan also knows what he'll be looking at before the people get to the window. He just looks at them, and looks at how they've packaged their item to carry it to the store, and he'll know that what they're about to offer is worthless. This is a type of ghetto savvy that I haven't picked up on yet.

[Undertoad]

My job at this time is to not pay attention to the various stories and dramas that people offer. As often as not they're acting, they're writing, they're inventing all kinds of crap to tell us in order to sway us into giving them more money.

Some of it is true. But not the girl who called in with the pretend meek voice, saying she needed money for her cancer medication. Not the guy who just needed enough money to get gas to get to his new job and then turned around and bought a DVD. And not the white chick who needed to get $50 for her rent and could only get $30 for her shitty tools... and proceeded cry in front of us. Although I noticed... no actual tears.

After the weepy chick, Alan asked me whether I was affected by that one. No, I didn't really care, and I figured she was acting anyway. And I prefer weepy to insane.

The people I believe are the ones who offer their story after the deal is done. "Yeah I'm gettin' a Septa pass to get to my job." or "Cool, I just need $10 more on my water bill." But if you tell me your story before the offer comes down, I don't need to hear that, and it doesn't affect the numbers any direction anyway.

[Undertoad]

Well, I just had my first snatch-n-grab theft: a guy stole a PS Vita I was showing him, by just running out the door with it while I was demoing it to him.

I was too far from the door locking switch when I realized what happened. It was my fault, although figuring out what to watch and when and why is a learned skill that I don't have. Well now I do. You demo only from the window next to the switch.

We have video of it but I don't know whether this event will be taken to the cops. It pretty much ruined Alan's day and mine, although part of the reason it happened is because Sammy called in with his kid being sick so we were short-staffed.

Alan is pretty pissed about the whole thing, the loss of about $200 was about what the store brought in today, and I feel like crap because he feels like crap.

[jimhelm]

Crap