pawn shop buy worth it?

Jhkramer

Elite Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Messages
796
Location
Near Grand Rapids, Michigan
went to a local pawn shop today just to look around. noticed some coins in the corner and they usually dont sell coins. also over heard the guy working say to someone selling stuff that they arent buying anything right now as they have too much inventory and not enough money. well i got talking to the clerk and he didnt even know what to grab when i said i wanted to see the morgan dollar and the peace dollars. anyway i ended up buying an 1881 "O" mint morgan, a 1922 "D" mint peace and a 1923 "S" mint peace. all were in decent shape about VF 40. I paid 50$ exactly.

So fellow MD'ers did I do well?
 
DEF. go back! Clean 'em out for that price. Silver will rise again, so hold on to them for now if you plan to scrap em.
 
I love it when pawn shops don't know what they have. It happens a lot. I work on cars and about a year back I bought a cherry picker (engine hoist) for $50 new in box. It wasn't name brand and probably came from Harbor Freight but they are usually $200. In 2005 a local pawn shop got busted for illegal guns and they had an 18 yr old kid running the place. He sold me a John Deere riding mower with 7 hours on it for $300. Good deals can be had.:grin:
 
I agree with RMR get evreything you can get at a decent price...all 3 for 50 is a great deal.
 
yea this is a hole in the wall type place and some younger guy was working. they didnt have any dollar silver coins left though but i think they had some liberty halves i will have to go back and check out. its just that i dont keep track of silver values enough to know what each type of old coin was worth. ill do some research then go back with top prices for each.
 
All of the pawn shops down here KNOW everything they got and it's priced that way, too. No deals, at all, to be had. But it's fun to look for exceptions!:D I always drop by to see if any detectors come in. :yes:
 
I work at one ..more truthfully just hang out and get told what to do on weekends, and the reason alot of people dont go in them is because what is they think most everything is junk, you have to ask what they have coming out soon, and what date its on . The owner of this one has people who call every morning finding out whats coming out of pawn, and whats going to be asked on it. I will admit that I have purchased quite a few guns this way. The owner scarfs up all the silver coins hes a big collector.
 
I look for guitars at our only pawn shop. The woman who runs it prices all her guitars the same as used from guitar center....needless to say, she's had the same guitars there for 6months now.
 
Nice buy! Not saying anything about your buy, but be careful buying the Morgans - on Coinflation they had a story about a pawn shop that bought a bunch of Morgans that were fake. They paid melt value for them. Apparently they were sealed in some kind of coin album.
 
just an update, went back to the pawn shop today and got 6 half dollars ( 3 walking liberty and 3 franklin half dollars) all for 25$ even. took all the dollar and half dollar coins to a dealer and got 135$ for them so i basically made 60$ by having a good eye. :grin:
 
just an update, went back to the pawn shop today and got 6 half dollars ( 3 walking liberty and 3 franklin half dollars) all for 25$ even. took all the dollar and half dollar coins to a dealer and got 135$ for them so i basically made 60$ by having a good eye. :grin:

If you were in desperate need of cash you did well. I guess its like finding $60 on the ground, but the melt on that is well over that. That dealer took you for a ride. If you tried to sell them here you could have gotten $150 plus. As a member to this site it is not a rule, but usually you can make some really good detecting friends by offering that stuff up here. And most won't take you for a ride like that dealer did.

Just food for thought.

Greg
 
The guy I sold them to had a little booth at a gun and knife show in Lansing and he seemed nice enough and I knew he was making money on them when I sold them, not an unreasonable amount by my assessment. But I was also making money on them. The way I looked at it, it was like I was paying it forward.
 
Counterfeit coins are making inroads at shows. Washington state recently had a bunch show up. Chinese made and very good fakes, but they couldn't get the weight right.
 
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