Hey guys, Im back after a long hiatus! I will only be checkin in periodically until about August or so.
I just came back from my favorite (not) pawn shop. These people are crazy. The first gun I look at is a Yugo sks. It has about average wear and I'd say overall decent condition. The price tag said $235!!! I had to look twice!!
Next I saw a M-44 in about average condition. They were asking $135! I thought I can order this same gun for about $70!! I shoulda' asked the owner what he was smokin!! Unfortunately, its 1 of only 2 pawn shops around here and the other one is just as bad.
I noticed the same thing at a lot of my local pawn shops. They seem to think that they are sitting on a gold mine when it is more like a silver or steel mine.
I've never had any luck with pawn shops. You can generally buy a new one of something for the same price. Or if it is older and no longer in production, you can find a better deal on the net.
This goes for guns, guitars, tools, pretty much anything. There is one place in town that sells old Nintendo games for $3 bucks. They used to have THOUSANDS of them in big bins. I would buy a few every month for a while. Good times....
I am finding that most pawn shop prices are pretty inflated on firearms. I even had one guy try to start an argument with me about his pricing and how cheaply he can buy new guns. This was just three days ago. His prices were almost $100 over new for used pieces. I left and will never be back.
Unfortunately, prices are going up. It's not like the "good old days," anymore. Keep your eyes open, check the newspapers and any gunshop that is near. Pawn shops will do "deals" but I've found that to work, only AFTER they know me, and know me good. (Take some things in to pawn, that makes them happy...) There are bargains that can still be found, do you have one of those community newspapers that you can advertise in? I've found those to be useful, especially with devorced women, they just want to get "something" and with luck, you might get it all.
I am finding that most pawn shop prices are pretty inflated on firearms.
Define inflated? What do you consider to be a normal mark-up for an item? He's in the business to make money regardless of how outrages his prices are. If he bought that SKS for a hundred and sold it for $150; he gets a fifty dollar profit. If his rent is 700$ a month and his utilities are $200, then he has an overhead of 10800$ a year. That means he's got to sell 216 SKS's just to pay his bills, not including his taxes, insurance and license fees and other upkeep; plus he's got to turn a profit so he can hire peple and sustain himself.
Most pawn shops usually charge twice as much, or more, as what they have in an item regardless of what the item is. I have seen 80$ walmart stereos beat all the !!!! with a 95$ price tag on them. That's why they're called pawn shops and not discount stores.
Get a C&R and go tell the dealer to stick it.
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Hey guys, Im back after a long hiatus! I will only be checkin in periodically until about August or so.
I just came back from my favorite (not) pawn shop. These people are crazy. The first gun I look at is a Yugo sks. It has about average wear and I'd say overall decent condition. The price tag said $235!!! I had to look twice!!
Next I saw a M-44 in about average condition. They were asking $135! I thought I can order this same gun for about $70!! I shoulda' asked the owner what he was smokin!! Unfortunately, its 1 of only 2 pawn shops around here and the other one is just as bad.
Those prices sound like gun show prices, or atleast what I'm starting to see. Those Russian bolt guns are going for about $120 now at shows(atleast around here), and it's not uncommon to find SKS's for atleast $200, even the Yugos with 8 pounds of cosmo are up there. I can remember going to shows 10 years ago with my Dad and seeing SKS's for $50, AK's for $150-$200, FAL's for $350, and Eddystone 1917 rifles for $350. Now the last two are upwards of $900, AK's are $500-$600. Look at the M1 Carbine, alot of them are priced higher then a Garand anymore. The fact is guns are going up and going up fairly quick, especially semi-autos. My advice would be to buy as much as you can as quick as you can. I've found three things that always go up in value, land/real estate, old cars, and guns.
Take one of your guns in and see what they will give you for it...Peanuts !
Greed is starting to take over more and more and deals are getting harder to come by ! One local shop here will give you 50- 75 bucks for your gun and sell it later for 300-400. go figure....
Rich
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I agree that greed sometimes sets in, but the cost of doing business and the mere fact that to even have a license to own an FFL is extremely high. Someone said get a C&R...well that only works if the gun is old enough...and you don't have to have a business front unlike the FFL.
It's not cheap for insurance on a gun store...and putting up with all the hassle from BATF.
The days of a home FFL are over. There used to be about 70,000 FFL holders...that number has dropped tremendously. I want to say to less than 20,000. I will have to look it up.
I still wouldn't pay outrageous prices no...but do some research on the net first. I use the net as a guideline to anything I buy.
Those kind of folks try to make you believe that their merchandise is solid gold and yours is barn yard litter.
When I was a kid there was a common name for folks like that,now we just think of them as thievin' bastids.
Around here, they're a dying breed. And I'd say his prices are probably about what used guns are going for on gunbroker.com, minus the shipping charges. Can't argue with that. Besides, how could you not like a guy who has a chalkboard listing what AR15 receivers and other parts are in stock on a given day, how many there are and the day's prices?
But his tool prices are just as insane as every other pawn shop I've stuck my nose into in the last couple of years. I honestly don't know how (or if) they can sell any tools, when their prices for beat-up, worn-out pieces of junk are higher than the tools would cost brand new.
Maybe you're expected to bargain, and talk them down like you're at a flea market?
We've still got 1 good pawn shop here. He keeps his prices pretty low. He usually makes $20-$40 on any gun he sells, new or used. But his shop is always so packed with people you can't get around in it. And if you say you went to "Jeff's" around here everybody knows what you mean even though that's not the name of the shop. The other guy in town charges new prices for old rusted up junk and appearently all his new guns are lined with gold and diamonds. If you take a gun in to sell he looks it up on gunbroker and offers just under whatever the current bid is, no mater how much time it has left. I was picking up guns there from his customers to work on them at a reduced rate because of the volume of business I got from him. Then come to find out, he was charging people almost as much to set their guns over in his corner for a day or 2 as I was to work on them, then he tells them that he's not making anything from it. I called all of them I could reach and told them to call me directly if they needed any work done from now on because I wouldn't set foot in that place again.
Some people will exploit any angle they can for an extra buck.
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:gangster:
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I am going to chime in here on the side of the pawn shop. Gun prices are going up and it is way overdue! (I say this as an internet and gunshow retailer myself)
In the past and today, most gun shops/dealers have been working on markups of as little as 5% after shipping (including pawn shops). and they almost never get credit from there distributors like other businesses, so they have to put out the cash for there inventory UP FRONT (instead of letting it draw interest.) And the distributors are at fault too, offering guns to dealers for only 5 to 10% under what they and the manufacturers publish as "list price"
EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD works with at least a 50% markup to cover the retailers costs (except promotional sales), and things like jewlery even runs as high as 400% over cost (called "keystone").
And that is the NUMBER ONE reason you almost never see guns stores around anymore. you simply cannot stay in business, pay your licensing fees, taxes (my state and local taxes and fees run me thousands each year and I don't even have a brick and morter store!), and pay employees and still make a profit (your goal in business to begin with, not making people happy with cheap gun prices) especially with a 5 or 10% maximum markup.
Add in companies like Walmart who buy so many guns, they can sell them at retail for less than what a dealer can buy them from his distributor for!
Also remember on a lot of pawn store guns (especially ones lost to a pawn ticket) you NEVER pay the full price...they always set the price much higher knowning most people will try and try to negotiate them down.
If you don't like paying your gun dealer enough so he can make a living like you pay your car dealer, food dealer, power company, etc...then spend the money and go through the enormous hassle of getting a C&R (or god forbid) an #01 FFL...buy an expensive safe...put up the the BATF combing your home, paperwork and records a couple times a year...and yourself save the couple of bucks bucks profit your gun dealer wants to make ends meet..
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Define inflated? What do you consider to be a normal mark-up for an item? He's in the business to make money regardless of how outrages his prices are. If he bought that SKS for a hundred and sold it for $150; he gets a fifty dollar profit. If his rent is 700$ a month and his utilities are $200, then he has an overhead of 10800$ a year. That means he's got to sell 216 SKS's just to pay his bills, not including his taxes, insurance and license fees and other upkeep; plus he's got to turn a profit so he can hire peple and sustain himself.
Most pawn shops usually charge twice as much, or more, as what they have in an item regardless of what the item is. I have seen 80$ walmart stereos beat all the !!!! with a 95$ price tag on them. That's why they're called pawn shops and not discount stores.
Get a C&R and go tell the dealer to stick it.
Pawnshops a ripoff. they wont give ya 100 bucks for your sks, more like 20 to 40 bucks and then they try to sell it for 4 and 5 times what they paid for it or more. Pawnshops are for drug addicts anyways they only give them enough for there item so they can go out and get a fix.BTW Pawn shops around where i live have hundreds of guns in there but ppl always pay to get them out so i never see any on the shelves
