|
I've spent a fair amount of time in pawn shops in the Houston area, sometimes to shop or just kill some time looking around. I've purchased a few shot guns, some camera gear and an awesome recently stolen Toro self propelled lawn mower. I figure it was stolen because every other lawn mower they were selling burned oil really bad and this one looked brand new.
Once I needed a 6 x 7 format camera for a big photo shoot I had gotten and I was broke as it was just after my during my divorce I had sold mine. So I went to this one pawn shop that sold a lot of cameras and bought a nice Mamiya RB67, 3 backs and 2 lenses for a pretty good price and the job more then paid for the gear.
I've bought and sold plenty of tools, either ones I needed to do some work or to sell for cash when I was broke.
When my old favorite goose gun, my Spanish 10 gauge side by side began showing signs of barrel bulge from shooting too much T size steel shot I began to worry that one day the barrel would just explode so I took it in and pawned it since you get more for a pawn than selling it as I recall. The guy never felt the end of the barrel or he would have known something was weird about the gun and I think he gave me $150 for it. I threw the pawn ticket out after I left as I never had any intention of going back to get it and later that day I took the $150 and some more of my savings and bought a Ithica 10 gauge automatic which is about the best goose gun ever made.
I wonder if Craig's List has cut into the pawn shop's market share? Seems like you can get a lot of the same type of stuff for about the same prices. Of course it isn't like pawning which is sort of like a loan against an item, on Craig's list it's a buy sell market.
Haven't seen any pawn shops here in Australia, maybe they don't allow them.
|