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Undertoad · 02-19-2013, 10:28 PM

A white guy and a black guy walk into the pawn shop. This is not the beginning of a joke.

They walk in with a 32" Emerson TV. White guy asks how much we would pay for such a thing.

Firstly, Emerson is amongst the brands that is well understood outside the ghetto to be a piece of shit. Although if you, the reader, own any Emerson-branded goods, I mean no disrespect to you. You made the calculation you needed to make when you bought it. I myself have been there.

We have a general protocol for dealing with people who want to sell things. We try to ask the person how much they're looking for, early in our interaction. If they have a DVD player and they want $100 for it, we will turn them away before evaluating their stuff. They may become irate when told it's worth $10 to us.

In this case the guy suggested that it should be worth $200. And it should be, because any used or thrift goods shop selling such a TV would price it at around $200.

So when we told him we were nowhere near that, and were closer to $50 on such a thing, he immediately asked how much we'd sell it for.

Now, typically this question is confrontational and we deflect it. But this guy wasn't confrontational, he was more curious. OK, we'd hold on to it for 90 days by law and then try to get $200 and probably end up making a deal for $180.

Cool, white guy says, and they leave with the TV.

Alan, the veteran, immediately understood what had just happened. They never intended to sell the TV to us. White guy was trying to sell the TV to black guy, but they had to figure out what the right price was. Once they got some information, they moved back out to the street to make their street deal.

02-19-2013, 10:28 PM	#504
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	A white guy and a black guy walk into the pawn shop. This is not the beginning of a joke. They walk in with a 32" Emerson TV. White guy asks how much we would pay for such a thing. Firstly, Emerson is amongst the brands that is well understood outside the ghetto to be a piece of shit. Although if you, the reader, own any Emerson-branded goods, I mean no disrespect to you. You made the calculation you needed to make when you bought it. I myself have been there. We have a general protocol for dealing with people who want to sell things. We try to ask the person how much they're looking for, early in our interaction. If they have a DVD player and they want $100 for it, we will turn them away before evaluating their stuff. They may become irate when told it's worth $10 to us. In this case the guy suggested that it should be worth $200. And it should be, because any used or thrift goods shop selling such a TV would price it at around $200. So when we told him we were nowhere near that, and were closer to $50 on such a thing, he immediately asked how much we'd sell it for. Now, typically this question is confrontational and we deflect it. But this guy wasn't confrontational, he was more curious. OK, we'd hold on to it for 90 days by law and then try to get $200 and probably end up making a deal for $180. Cool, white guy says, and they leave with the TV. Alan, the veteran, immediately understood what had just happened. They never intended to sell the TV to us. White guy was trying to sell the TV to black guy, but they had to figure out what the right price was. Once they got some information, they moved back out to the street to make their street deal.