Update 01/07/2010

OK OK I know its been awhile.....In between the new Pawn Shop I have also been living my life.  For those of you who know me I have and drive a lot of classic cars and my baby 69 Dodge is just about done.  I spent the last 4 years making my ultimate daily driver and now the last of the mods are almost done.

That is 512 cubic inches of Chrysler motivation.  I owe great thanks to the Shaun over at Street Productions in Largo he truly is a master craftsman. We had it on a dyno and unfortunately the dyno only went to 700ft lbs of torque because this motor has more than that.  Should be installed and running by tomorrow.  Look out St Pete here comes the hammer....

Plus we are going to have our first buys come out of holding tomorrow and have pawn shop material for sale!!!!  We have enough to fill 4 cases and two of the big gondola shelves as you walk in the store.  We also have an ad starting tomorrow in the Pinellas Park newspaper.  The ad is one of those kind that are like Post-It notes on the front page.  Going out to 20,000 papers it's an ad for gold at 28/gram or 5% loan. We shall see how it works on Saturday.

We have had great traffic for start up and some interesting items check it out....

Michael Kelly Visionary acoustic bass 749.00 retail less than 300 here

I got a ton of new Citizen Eco Drive watches from my friends at The Watch Studio.  

These are honest $270 watches that are gonna go for less than $110!

 

No real Pimp is complete without his own pimp ring.  This one is in 14kt white gold and 1.5ct of hard slapping diamonds.  I know you can't live without it $500

More to come very soon thanks for looking and please go to Yelp and say nice things about us, that would really be great.

talk soon....

Tim

ok I am a pawnbroker for real now

Well we started the marketing plan today even though Pawnmaster was not functioning properly yet.  I bought a ipod and some dvd's  grand total 180.00  retail maybe 300.00. 

30 days from now we will do an update and see how we did.  4 walk ins and 1 guy who literally threw the door open and screamed "do you buy paint sprayers"  and then ran off.  You couldn't make this stuff up. 

We only had an hour to really attack the plan but we generated a lot of action.  Still nothing, and I mean nothing but some guitars in the store. 

We did have one nice old lady come in present us an old 14k ring with some small diamonds oone missing.  Because the scale was not working I sent her to the "we buy gold" guy around the corner.  I told her that the going reate was around 12-15/gram and to make sure and see the scale. 

In a matter of minutes she is back and tells me that he offered her 60 dollars and "said" the ring weighed about 4 grams but she couldn't see it.......hmmm.  Wel a least I know how much the gold guy pays.

All in all a great start.

Federal Firearms License

OK now I'm real trouble, I have an FFL and I can can mess you up!  What that means is a I can buy and sell most handguns and long guns.  Paperwork is crazy but it is worth it.  One of the advantages is that you get the best pricing on guns but if you mess up the paperwork, it's your ass.

The guys over at the ATF where you get the license are the best.  Yah it is a body cavity search but if you are serious about guns you get the license.

New cabinets finally arrive

First delivery of merchandise

Well we got our first merchandise to sell/give away at the shop today.  I got 200 knives form the site liquidation.com and they are very cool.  We will have a big sign on the building that offers a free gift for first time visitors.  I think that will go over well, we'll see.

Tomorrow the display cases and shelving comes and we are on track to have the software installed this week.  Forms were ordered from Burrell, jewelry is on the way and guitars are coming, I can feel it now.

so what does it take to start a pawn shop?

I hope you're not trying this but I am and it's frustrating.  You need these (not in this order)

• a wife that completely believes in you....really
  
• money, cash not credit, and lots of it
• a building, here is mine Big Tim's Pawn 
• licenses.....Pawnbrokers license, occupational and if you want to deal in firearms a federal firearms license
• pawnbrokers insurance
• safes
• security system
• displays and shelves
• software
• employees
• did I mention cash?
• membership to the state and national associations
• be completely insane....check