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| - I love Vegas. No seriously, I love being a tourist in my home town. People shell out thousands of dollars a year to see things that I can see on any given Tuesday. So it's on a mid-day week that I decide to head on over to the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. I've been there a couple times long before the show debuted on History Channel. At that time, it was your typical pawn shop. There was a handful of older jewelry and high-end watches in cases, a few stereos, and of course a Super Bowl Ring. The inside is fairly small and resembled what you'd expect from a downtown pawn shop where people hawk their priced possessions for enough money to get themselves home.
The stock today was a bit this different, though. The electronics display consisted of two laptops, a Wii, and a couple DVD players. Much of the jewelry still sat in cases. I shop pawn shops frequently to buy electronics items, so my purpose for visiting was to see if the place had changed much. It was actually my second attempt to visit the store as I went on a Friday evening the week prior.
During the day, there's a line down the sidewalk. If you're fortunate to be there when the film crew is there, be prepared for an even longer wait. They will ask you to wait outside unless you're actually in the process of a transaction. If you're there to scalp some old DVDs or CDs or otherwise not really selling anything of interest, don't expect to be on TV. Being that I was a just being a looky-loo, I was one of a few people escorted to wait in line as to no create chaos inside. I decided that I could return another day and left.
On my second return, I only waited about 10 minutes. This was during the week and mid-day. Sure enough, the Old Man was there playing solitaire. He's actually a nice guy. You can tell why he's in the pawn business. He's very nostalgic. I sparked up a conversation about the Navy, in which they had some memorabilia for sale. As a Navy veteran myself, we swapped a sea story until he had to break the conversation to attend to somebody selling an antique globe.
Rick was also there working with another customer. Although, I didn't get to speak with him personally, I did some eavesdropping while eyeballing some vintage items nearby. The guy seem really smart. I'm a history buff and he seems to know his stuff.
If you're a tourist, don't expect much. If you're lucky, you'll get to see one of the four main guys at work. But it's not likely. It's more of an antique store these days than actual pawn shop. So forget about going in hoping to buy a Pearl Jam CD from Chumlee. They have the merchandise available, but it's nothing that you can't get online.
My $.02 Cents:
3 Stars for Pawn Stars - As a pawn shop, this place kind of lacks in items that I would go to a pawn shop for. Very few things like tools, cameras, DVD players, and musical instruments. Lots of historically relevant stuff and antique nostalgic items. If you're looking to see (or buy) some pretty cool things or interested in getting some info about an item passed on to you for generations... then hit this place up!
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