How much is my xBox360 worth at a pawn shop?

                                                                    

How much is your Xbox 360 worth?  There are a few ways to sell your Xbox 360 all will work with some patience.  Lets walk through the most common ones.

eBay
Craigslist
Gamestop
Pawn Shops
      

Thousands of  Xbox 360's sell on eBay, but selling on of eBay is difficult.  As this article is written there are over 7,000 consoles for sale.  eBay seems to go out of it's way to make selling hard.  First you have to sign up with a credit card.  Then getting your money is tedious as eBay only wants you to use their checkout system, PayPal.  I won't go into the problems with PayPal suffice it to say that the buyer has much more protection than you.  eBay is rife with scam artists with little recourse on your part.  Even if you do everything right the buyer can lodge a complaint with you and renege on their payments.  Because of the shipping costs, eBay fees and PayPal fees involved you will not get very much from an eBay transaction.

Craigslist is whole other animal. As a Pawn shop we have to deal with Craigslist on a daily basis.  We hear the horror stories of dealing with idiots and criminals or worse.  You should have to have a license to sell or buy anything from Craigslist, I would never want my children to use it.  Going to a meeting with stranger where they know you will have either merchandise or cash is an invitation to disaster.  Please use great caution with Craigslist.  Now if you have a store where people bring you stuff from Craigslist, that is completely different.  We buy and sell like that many times per day.  Xbox 360's from Craigslist have a market value of $100-$175 dollars for the consoles.  The games vary widely in worth but can reach up to $25.

Gamestop is probably the worst choice for selling your Xbox 360. We called the local Gamestop this morning to see what I could get for an Xbox 360 Arcade system and they told us $64 dollars or $80 dollars in store credit. That is not even decent value, you might be better off getting that tattoo from the in trade from the guy on Craigslist calls us 3x a week.

One of your best solutions is to call around to your local pawn shops and inquire what they would either pay or loan you for your Xbox 360.  Your console is a valuable possession and pawn shop are your only way to get money for it and not sell it.  Our pawn shop isn't that much different from some we know and if you brought in an Elite system to us you could get $150 loan in under ten minutes.  When you want it back two weeks later it will cost you $15 in interest.  Or you could get up $250 to sell it outright depending on how it is equipped.  Safe transaction, money in minutes.  Hope that helps you make a safe choice.  You can always call us.

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This is how they pawn in the UK

SpeedSell is the simplest way to sell Apple Mac, sell Xbox 360, sell PlayStation 3 and sell Wii consoles

More Art, Vintage Guns, and where are all the Wii's

So we got some real art in this time from DL Rust four of his Emmitt Kelly Collection -- Erie, Pennsylvania, native D.L. "Rusty" Rust is an artist with a repertoire as extensive as his talent. An immensely prolific painter, Rust adeptly renders intriguing camouflage wildlife scenes, landscapes, seascapes, still-life's and portraits. His work is part of many prestigious collections, including the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the Ringling Museum of the Circus, and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Philadelphia. Among those prominent people Rust has painted are famous clown Emmett Kelly, Sr., Ringling clown Lou Jacobs, Mamie Van Doren, and Norman and Molly Rockwell. In addition to his fine art career, Rusty has also done extensive work in the field of book illustration, completing commissions for Reader's Digest, Wildlife Art News and Windsor Publications, Inc., to name a few. Working mainly in oil on canvas, this enormously popular artist has produced work for use on a large range of products, including calendars, mugs, and collector's plates. He also pioneered the concept of limited-edition original paintings and has done many such editions featuring clowns and wildlife. The artist now resides and paints in Sarasota, Florida.  These painting are all limited edition oils that are signed by Rusty himself.  Very cool., thanks to Lou for bringing them in.

this one in particular is very rare as it is 48x36 the auction book on it is $7000.00 going here for $4500.00

this set of three are 20x24

This is rarest of them all number 2 of 50 ever produced only $750 book value of over $2,000.00.

As for the guns we carry new guns but the interesting ones are the guns that come in off the street here are some coming out soon......

See and download the full gallery on posterous

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Des Moines' Pawn Shops Refuse "Stolen" Items - WHO

UNDERCOVER PAWN: Des Moines' pawn shops refuse "stolen" items

Aaron Brilbeck Staff Writer

February 11, 2010

DES MOINES - Back in November, several teens were charged with ransacking homes on the South Side of Des Moines. Police believed some of the things they stole, like laptop computers and other high end electronics, could have been pawned off.

So we wondered how tough it would be for teens equipped with a hidden camera to try to pawn off about $2,000 worth of home electronics for about $100. The good news is none of the pawn shops we went to took the bait. The bad news is none of them called police.

At Des Moines Gun and Pawn a man who later identified himself as the owner can be seen on the hidden camera looking through the box of electronics, but doesn't buy. "What else you got? Camera I won't do. Laptops I won't. Car stereo no too," he said. He suggested our undercover teens go somewhere else. "Try A-to-Z, Second and Euclid right on the corner," he said, "They might use some of this stuff." So we confronted him, wondering why he didn't call police if he suspected the goods were stolen. "It's my business. I know what I'm doing... I'm not judge and jury," he said.

That seemed to be the case with other area pawn shops too. At Mr. Money the clerk seemed more concerned about chargers for the lap top computers than whether they were stolen. When we confronted her, she admitted the electronics looked stolen, but would not call police. "Um, I didn't call police. I can't assume it's stolen. I can only not take it," she said.

At U.S. Pawn, the owner was also suspicious, asking the teens on hidden camera, "Where'd you get all this stuff?" He apparently wasn't satisfied with the teens' answer and sent them away, but did not call police. When asked why, he replied, "If I called police every time I was suspicious they'd just have to put a police station in here."

Des Moines Police admit it's difficult to prove someone is bringing stolen goods into pawn shops, even if the merchandise clearly looks stolen. Sgt. Dave Murillo heads up the police Pawn Shop Task Force. He said "They could call all day and it wouldn't do anything." The problem is, Murillo explains, without an identifier like a serial number there's no way to prove an item is stolen and no way to track the victim. He said most people don't bother to get serial numbers. "What's the serial number on your lawn mower?" he asked as an example.

Murillo admits logging serial numbers on valuables could help get them back if their stolen. But don't expect pawn shops to help much. They aren't required to call police if they suspect stolen items are brought into their stores. And, Murillo added, generally the stores don't have the time to deal with stolen merchandise or call police. "They don't want to lose money," he said, "Time is money. So they shoo them off."

Copyright © 2010, WHO-TV

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via whotv.com

There just is no winning local TV station sets up a sting and not a single pawnbroker buys it. But because they didn't call the police they have "bad morals", WTF.

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During desperate times, Mexican families turn to 'Aunt Pity'

There are worse places for a Mexican family to hock its jewels than the national pawnshop, headquartered atop the ruins of the Aztec emperor Montezuma's residence in the heart of the capital.

The pawn palace, built of volcanic stone and eccentrically renovated over the past five centuries, once served as the treasure house for conquistador Hernando Cortés. Today it is where Mexicans trade in their wedding rings to pay for their children's school uniforms.

Ordinary desperation brought Evelia Medina to the Nacional Monte de Piedad, literally the National Mountain of Pity. What she needed was some quick cash. In her hand were two slim gold chains and a ruby teardrop ring. Due last week: her telephone bill.

"I would prefer not to give my jewelry away, but what is the alternative?" Medina said. The 43-year-old mother of three, who works as a secretary to a notary, was counting on a $150 loan, which she planned to repay by March. Or maybe April.

"Toys," she said. "They cost a lot." A Christmas shopping spree had killed her budget and brought her to the end of a long line to wait for an appraiser to tell her what her trove was worth.

The National Mountain of Pity is the cash shack of first and last resort for millions of Mexicans -- an estimated one in four families gets a micro loan -- and the business of bailing citizens out of their financial jams is booming.

"I would call this unprecedented growth," said Gustavo Méndez Tapia, spokesman for the enterprise, which many Mexicans call simply "the Mountain," or sometimes "Aunt Pity."

In 1990, the pawnshop had a few dozen branch offices scattered across the country. Now it has 169 outlets, and by year's end there will be 272.

Mexico's economy shrank about 7 percent in 2009, victim of the triple whammy of a swine flu epidemic, falling oil prices and global recession, marked by the sluggish spending of the country's top trading partner, the United States. In January, Mexico's annual inflation rate rose to 4.17 percent. The Central Bank reports that remittances from Mexican workers abroad, mostly in the United States, plunged almost 16 percent in 2009 compared with 2008, a record freefall for Mexico's second-biggest source of foreign capital, after oil.

Meanwhile, consumers' purchasing power has fallen by 41 percent during President Felipe Calderón's tenure, even as a slight uptick in the minimum wage (to about $4.60 a day) was overwhelmed by higher transportation fares and prices for gasoline, electricity and food.

"It is hard times," said Guadalupe Jiménez, 33, a store clerk with medical bills to pay, who came to the Mountain to trade a gold watch for a few hundred dollars, at an interest rate of 4 percent a month, for a term of no longer than 17 months. Jiménez said she comes two or three times a year. "But I have always paid the money back," she said, proud that she, like 96 percent of the borrowers, reclaims her goods by repaying her loans.

The Mountain shelled out $1.4 billion in mini-loans last year, with the average value of each cash advance about $160. The pawnshop's busiest months are January (when Christmas bills come due), March (Easter week holidays) and August (tuition fees, books, clothes for school).

via washingtonpost.com

Holy S&^% now that is a pawn shop!

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Customers: Spying, lying and one that comes in twice a day....

If you wonder about pawn shop customers, you are weird, but not nearly as weird as they are. 

This week I have a few stories to tell, maybe you'll like them. 

The first is a tale of deception and diamonds.  Thursday we had a couple of women come in and tell a story of looking for diamonds.  Ok, I have a few.  We had a very nice 2.5 cttw engagement ring with bridal band come out.  It was priced very reasonably at $900 and was actually worth retail around $1200.  According to their story this was a mother/daughter team that wanted this ring. 

They had recently been robbed of over 100k dollars worth of jewelry and were looking to replace it.  Now I have developed a real ability to tell when someone is lying and my detector went off the scale but whatever.  Unfortunately for me they had talked with Eric beforehand and gotten an $800 out the door price. 

So after showing them how to look at a diamond and explain what to look for they purchase it, or so I thought.  Before they leave I offer to clean the rings and when I put it in the sonic cleaner one of the channel set diamonds falls out. 

Dammit, so I'm  off to my friend Vu around the corner and in a jiffy have it replaced.  Vu is a master jeweler and an even nicer guy.  If you ever need repair work just give me a call I'll get you his number. 

Back to the story I re-ring their credit card and off they go, but not the end of the story. 

Now I market a lot on Craigslist and the very next day I see the same ring for sale in an ad that says she had canceled a wedding and wanted $2150.00 for it............good luck sister.  Eric tells me the next day she came in looking for some earrings that are coming out soon.....the price for those earrings just went up. 

I thought about the time I spent, all the effort to buy the ring and hold it for 30 days.  Then I sell it to her for 20% more than I bought it.  For those of you math inclined you will realize that is a 240%+ investment and should be happy, and I am,  I just don't like being lied to.  I can't wait for her to come back.

For a pawn shop you would probably be surprised how much technology we use.  We have eBay stores, blogs, websites, Facebook pages and google adwords accounts and we track everything through google analytics and statcounter. 

If you think that when you are cruising around the internet you have some cloak of anonymity you'd be wrong, really wrong. 

I know where every visitor comes from, I know what keywords you typed in to find my sites.  I know the website you were in before and after you got to my site.  I know how long you stay and what you read, I even know where your mouse goes on the page.  So for all my friends and family and extended family I see you peeking from your FB pages.

Finally, we are starting to develop our own set of regulars.  One of those is Paulie.  Paulie is an extended relative of Eric's.  One of those "Uncles" you have as a kid who really isn't related.  Paulie is a pawn shop lifer who has been run out of Southern pawn and the others around here.  Paulie comes in twice a day every day usually once with stuff we don't want then with better stuff because he gets desperate for smokes.  customers like Paulie are great to have and he already has brought other friends in the shop.  Hopefully we can get the video from the security system going on the website and you can see this guy, he's one of a kind.  That is one of the projects to come this month, live pawn shop video, now that's entertainment.

I will have a listing early in the week of stuff coming out stay tuned.....

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More bad Pawn Shop press.......:<

DENVER - Your old jewelry can make you some money. Gold is in hot demand these days and selling at near-record prices around the world because it is seen as a safe asset in uncertain times.

You probably have seen the ads asking you to send off your old jewelry to receive a check in the mail.

But you should not expect a pot of gold in return. In fact, consumer experts say the best and safest way to cash in on your gold is to compare prices around town.

9NEWS brought a few pieces of jewelry to several stores to see what they were offering.

The difference was almost $2,000 in one case.

Our biggest piece was a thick, 14-karat gold necklace, made up of two bracelets that lock together.

The jeweler examined and weighed it before calculating the price based on the percentage of weight in gold.

The price for the heavy necklace came to $1,572.78.

Then we pulled out a few old bracelets and necklaces, five pieces in all, for a price.

The pieces were worth more than $756, bringing the grand total of the jewelry and heavy necklace to $2,329.60.

"If people have got it and they want to sell it, I think now is as good a time as any," one jeweler at William Crow said.

9NEWS took the same pieces of jewelry and went to a handful of stores, all in the same day.

First, we went to a pawn shop in Wheat Ridge, where the staff would not even accept our heavy necklace, saying it was fake, even though it was worth more than $1,500 at a Denver jeweler.

They did offer money for our other necklaces and bracelets.

After tapping buttons on his calculator, the worker said, "I'll go as high as $400 for you."

That was compared to the $2,329.60 from our first offer, which included the necklace.

The next pawn shop we visited in Lakewood also refused to offer anything for the heavy necklace, after examining it, also saying it appeared to be fake.

The store was willing to go as high as $650 for the other jewelry; no where near the amount of our first price quote.

Finally, somebody else was willing to buy our thick heavy necklace at a pawn shop on Colfax in Denver.

Along with our other jewelry, it was the second-highest offer.

"We'll get you $2,175 [for all of the jewelry]," said one worker.

Our last stop took us to a Cash for Gold kiosk in an area mall.

After examining the pieces, the worker came up with an offer of, "Close to $1,500, possibly as much as like $1,500 and change."

It was still far short of the $2,329.60 offer we received at our first Denver jeweler.

While one Denver jeweler said he would offer 75 percent to 80 percent of the current value on the jewelry, consumer experts warn that many companies will only pay as high as 15 percent to 20 percent of the value.

Experts also warn that some stores may be willing to pay good money to reuse your old jewelry, but others will give you the lowest value and end up making money on it by scrapping it.

(KUSA-TV © 2010 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

via 9news.com

Be careful out there it's a jungle. Go to more than one shop.

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Pawn Stars

via histmyst.blogspot.com

good post

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Circus bikes, eviction notices, and perfect redemption....

What is the weirdest thing in the shop is a question I get a lot.  I have an Ivory walrus, and a boars tusk on a silver claddah, even a Frank Frazzeta lithograph but.....

Today one of our fair customers called me and asked if we would give $20 on a circus bike.  So, I ask "what are you talking about?".  Seems he had one of those tiny bikes that clown ride on and his kids ride it.  I told him to bring it in and within 20 minutes sitting on my counter was the smallest bike you could ever imagine.  He asks for 25 of course I tell him that if he rides it I'll give him $25, no go.  So he gets his $20 and is on his way...

Then yesterday I had a customer come in that is really on his last bit of any luck and brings in a kitchen-aid mixer, a big one.  He wants $60 but I don't want it so I offer him $20 hoping he says no.  Then in dramatic fashion he whips out an eviction notice and point to the 2 women that came with him.  His mother and daughter look down and he tells me that he needs $60 to move them.  Mom starts crying and the daughter is deaf and looks like she is going to join Mom....  If anyone ever tells you that pawnbrokers are heartless I'm living proof to the contrary.  I now have a mixer that I can't sell probably, hope my wife likes it....

In our business you hope that every loan comes back to pick up thier pledge but that never happens.  Eventually some of them default.  Becasue we are less than 60 days old we haven't had anyone default but we have over 60 loans at this point and today we had 4 of them come in and redeem, we literally have zero late loans at this point.  The merchandise that is on the shelves is all purchased off the street no bad loans yet...........maybe I can be the first pawnbroker ever that has no defaults I'll keep you in the loop...

The door hanger ads go out tomorrow flyer Mike says he will get all 2500 out in the morning woohoo.  Until then have a gander of Thunder and me in front of the store if anyone wants more of the car or less of me let me know.

Tim

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Where can I sell my PS3 for the most money?

Where can I sell my Playstation 3 and get the most money? Better yet where can I sell a PS3 for the most money with the least amount of headache? People will ask you why do you want to sell your PS3, it's great. The fact is you probably don't want to sell it but you have to because of some unforeseen financial problems. And if this is the case you need money quickly to solve your problems. This can limit your options and hinder you getting the value you deserve for the PS3. First you need to find out how much is a PS3 worth?

Brand new the 250 GB PS3 can sell for as much as 350 dollars and the 80GB and 120 GB sell for 300 dollars. Some used models sell that high as well. The backwards compatible PS3 can command a price as high as the new 250 GB PS3.   What you need to know is how much do PS3's sell for used and more importantly how much will someone pay for yours? And how long will it take you to achieve your monetary goal? Sometimes a couple extra bucks are not worth the hassle of listening to a dozen hucksters try to give you their old twenty five gallon fish tank and a gift card to Walmart for your 40 GB PS3.  So what to do? There are a variety of options. You can sell the PS3 on Ebay, sell it on Craigslist, sell it or trade it in at Gamestop, or take the PS3 down to Big Tim's Pawn.

Big Tim's has paid as much as 280 dollars for a playstation 3 and in fact has never paid less than 215 dollars. Between 150 and 250 dollars seems a reasonable amount for a PS3 in working order with all of its cables and controllers. Getting this amount in a reasonable amount of time can be the tricky part. At Big Tim's Pawn you won't have to worry about that problem, you will find out exactly how much you will receive within ten minutes. Plus you can make as much as ten dollars on each of the games you have beaten and don't play anymore. This may not solve your financial problems  but it is a quick and fast start in the right direction.

Selling on Ebay can be a time consuming process and you are often dealing with people in other states or even countries. Even if you are protected from crooks by paypal it can take as long as 3 weeks to receive your money. That may be a problem depending on your needs. If you want to deal locally you can try Craigslist but that can cause all kinds of headaches. Very few offers will match your listing price and if you love to haggle this may be what you want to do. Be prepared to deal with offers of animals, car parts, cell phones, and many other bizarre items for your PS3 that will not solve your money problems. That also doesn't cover the hassle of having to arrange meetings with the prospective buyer who may only be able to meet you after midnight at some dangerous location. If you are willing to put up with this hassle you may get the money you need but again if you are under time constraints there is little chance of getting the money you need in the time you need it. The other option is Gamestop the video gaming store. They do not offer anywhere close to the value of your PS3. This morning I called a local Gamestop to see what I could get for my 40GB PS3 and they offered me 90$ in store credit or 72$ cash. This is for a PS3 worth close to 180 dollars. I don't see Gamestop being able to solve your problems.

Head to Big Tim's to sell your PS3, it is your best bet

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