Have you been watching Pawn Stars? I admit: I got kinda hooked on it and I have my TiVo grab all new episodes off the History Channel. I find it rather entertaining, mostly due to the personal charisma of the folks who run that hock shop in Las Vegas, and to the curiosity factor in the items they buy and sell. But when I see it referred to as a "reality show," I instantly respond with: "I don't think so."
I haven't spent much time in pawn shops. Long ago, when I was a kid getting interested in photography, I found them to be great places to buy cheap camera equipment so I hit up a couple. Then one time when I was in Vegas in the mid-eighties, I went into one downtown, just off Fremont Street. I was walking past and I noticed a framed Milton Caniff original in the window. It was a nice illustration of Steve Canyon done for I-don't-know-what-purpose and I couldn't read the sticker with the price on it. Intrigued, I went in and wound up having a nice conversation about comics with the proprietor. I didn't buy the piece — he wanted way too much for it — but I learned what having a pawn shop in Vegas is all about. It's all about people who split tens at the Blackjack table or are sure they have a foolproof system for Roulette.
I also noticed the owner had one framed celebrity photo on the wall behind the cash register. It was a photo signed personally to him by Redd Foxx.
No one is ever desperate for cash on Pawn Stars except, every so often, a guy who needs to make $X to marry the lady of his dreams. Maybe that's because folks who are in financial trouble won't go on camera or maybe it's because the show wants to offer up a benevolent, scrubbed image of the business. As it is, it's kind of like Antiques Road Show with an occasionally-dysfunctional family. The show's star Rick, who runs the pawn shop, is either the nicest, most honest pawn shop owner in America or he's been carefully sanitized for our (his?) protection. Here's a scene that happens over and over again…
Fella walks in with an item. Rick says, "Well, what have we here?" The seller says, "This is my pearl-handled, transistorized veeblefetzer from the Ming Dynasty." Rick asks some stock questions about where'd you get it, why do you want to part with it? Then he asks, "Do you know anything about veeblefetzers?" and the seller either knows very little or nothing. Whatever he knows, Rick knows more and delivers a quick history lesson that sure sounds like he's reading it off a TelePrompter hooked up to Wikipedia. Then he asks, "So what do you want to do with it? Sell it or pawn it?" 95% of the time, the seller wants to sell.
Now, one of two things happens. Either they proceed straight to the haggling or Rick says, "Well, I don't know enough about veeblefetzers to make an offer but I got a buddy who knows everything about them. If it's okay with you, I'd like to get him down here to take a look at it." The seller says sure…and then later in the same episode, we have the following scene. Some buddy of Rick's, who's an expert and who apparently has nothing better to do than drive over and tell Rick what it is he may buy, comes in, sees the veeblefetzer on the counter and says, "Is that it?" Assured it is, the expert immediately tells Rick and the seller exactly what it is, when and where it was made, the name of the person who first used it for veeblefetzing and what it's worth —
— and unless that worth is "almost nothing" or less, the seller believes him. He doesn't pause to wonder if maybe because this "expert" is Rick's buddy, he's lowballing in order to lower what Rick will have to pay for the veeblefetzer. "Hey, thanks for stopping by," Rick says. And then the expert leaves and it's on to the haggling…
Rick asks, "How much did you want to get out it?" and the seller names a price that's about 90% of what the expert cited. Rick says, "Hey, I have to be able to resell this thing and make a profit." He offers 25%. They meet somewhere closer to 40% unless the item is among the one in three that Rick says is "One of the coolest things I've ever had in the shop," in which case it's more like 65%. Then they shake hands and the $100 bills are dispensed.
That's one scene that they do almost every week. Another is where Rick buys some old item that needs serious repair and then takes it over to a buddy (Rick has lots of buddies) to refurbish. Rick's a great businessman in the store but he keeps taking pieces of junk out for restoration without putting a limit on how much he'll pay for the work. In the last scene of the episode, he goes over to see the finished product. It always looks incredible and the price for fixing it up is always low enough that Rick will be able to get his money out and then some. The other way some episodes end is that Rick or his son bought some really odd gun and they go to see if it can be fired.
That the show is this repetitive and artificial but I still enjoy it says something, hopefully not about me. It taps into our natural interest as to whether that junk we've had out in the garage forever is worth anything. Rick seems like a smart, honest guy and we'd like to believe that's how people are in this world, even those who operate pawn shops. And everything moves at a fast clip and gets tied-up, neat as a bow. If you haven't sampled Pawn Stars, give one a peek. You might enjoy it. And if you have watched it and didn't like it, don't bother tuning in again. If you've seen one…