150 guitars in a DAY

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I’ll say we are jealous, but then Maui is not Austin.

guitar2

This piece from the Austin Chronicle is one of the longest features about a pawnshop we’ve ever read, but the CashAmerica (formerly and famously Doc Holliday’s) shop on South Lamar is a different kind of cat. Austin’s huge music scene supports a huge instrument market:

If pawnshops hold rock & roll together, then the vast CashAmerica on South Lamar is what longtime employee Ian Doherty calls, “The big bottle of wood glue that holds all the broken guitars together. We make it happen for all the musicians who are struggling to get where they’re going. Even the really big-shot guys still have bills coming up.”

Maui’s music scene, while vibrant, is nowhere near as big as Austin’s where hundreds, if not thousands of bands play at SXSW, and the South Lamar shop claims to have sold 150 guitars on opening day one year.

 

guitar1

It is not made clear whether 150 bands showed up without guitars, or 150 kids were so inspired by the groove that they went right down and got their starter axes at CashAmerica.

Kamaaina Loan And Cash For Gold will not sell 150 guitars in a day. The two photographs show about two-thirds of our display inventory at 96 N. Market this morning. We like to think that our prices are as good as the musicians enjoy in Austin, and we can confirm that our pawnshop (96 N. Market, a few steps down the street from the guitars) has helped many a Maui musician between gigs pay the rent.

And here’s a pro trick you may not know. Quite a few musicians going on tour pawn their spare instruments. We store them in our bonded, insured warehouse. When the tour is over, the players reclaim their stuff, which is a lot safer way of ensuring their gear than leaving it behind and asking a friend to look after it.

 

#mauimusic #mauiguitar #mauipawn #mauiloan

 

Save those receipts

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A customer came in today with a Niihau shell necklace she was interested in selling.  We, of course, were interested in buying.

Niihau shell jewelry is particularly tricky because without documentation  there is no direct way to tell whether it is authentic. Fortunately, she had retained the Certificate of Authenticity that came with the necklace when she bought it.

 

American_Express_Shipping_Receipt_1853

Certificates can be copied, however, so a sales receipt helps add value. The more documentation , the better. A sales receipt, by itself, proves little, but a collection of papers for an item adds value. This is also true of designer bags and similar items.

The receipt might seem like clutter, but if you paid hundreds of dollars for an item, and someday you might want to sell it (or use it to raise a pawn loan),  that slip of paper might add many dollars to the amount you realize.

‘Pawn Stars Live!’ is dying

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The attempt to parody the uber-popular reality show and sell tickets on the Las Vegas Strip has failed.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the show will close Aug. 24. (And who knew that denizens of n City call themselves Las Vegans? What kind of vegans are they?)

Even a complete rewrite and a move to another theater failed to resuscitate the show, which most critics said had misfired. It was probably a mistake to think of parodying a reality show anyway. Isn’t “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” already a parody? Satire might have fared better, but they say satire is what closes on Saturday.

Why make a police report?

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Here’s an unusual story from Wyoming and South Dakota which reinforces the notion that you should always make a police report when you experience a theft, even though statistics show that the vast majority of burglaries are never solved; and with sneak thefts, the clearance rate must be even smaller.

(One in 8 burglaries are cleared, according to the FBI.)

burglar

It is not unusual for someone to come into our Maui pawn shop and alert us to something that was stolen, in case someone brings it in and tries to cash in. And when we say,”‘Have you filed a police report?” very often they say, “No, it’s not worth it.”

Well, yeah, burglaries are hard crimes to solve (see link above), but without the palapala, how are we to know the item was stolen?

In the Wyoming case, the item — a World War I gas mask — was lost or stolen from a museum display back in the ’20s. In this case, if there was a police report, it has long since disappeared, but the item did have a label saying it came from the “Pennewill Collection.”

Hardly anybody has heard of the Pennewill Collection, but there’s always somebody, and he’s on the Internet.  The label was nearly as good as a serial number, and the mask was restored to the Wyoming State Museum.

Chris Johnson,  the Rapid City pawnbroker who bought the mask — almost certainly not from somebody who realized it was stolen property — said the right thing afterward:

“Any time we hear that something has been stolen, it gives us a little bit of a sinking feeling,” Johnson said. But he added that he was pleased to be able to donate it to the Cheyenne museum.

“You can’t put a price tag on giving something back to the rightful owners,” Johnson said.

The AP story does not make it clear, but apparently the museum had both a record and somebody on the staff who was aware of the theft from 90 or so years ago.

Pawn your sneaks? Sure, why not?

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You can do it in Harlem now.

Smell this

Smell this

A 16-year-old kid with 200 pairs of sneakers had the idea. It works about like any other pawn, which is to say, if there is a market for used goods, a pawnbroker somewhere will make a loan on them.

As we say at our Maui pawn shop, we’ll take in anything that doesn’t eat. And no doubt somewhere in the world there’s a pawnbroker who does take livestock, we just haven’t heard from him yet.

At Sneaker Pawn, there is a bit of a different wrinkle. If the shoe owner wants to sell, instead of making a straight purchase, it operates more like a consignment: Sneaker Pawn makes the sale and splits 80/20 with the seller — 80% to the seller.

Biggest drawback from the pawnbroker’s point of view: He has to sniff each shoe.

 

 

Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing

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As Smokey Robinson so wisely taught us long ago.

It appears that the magic of “Pawn Stars” is limited to the actual Gold & Silver Pawn Shop cast, at least if you value the opinion of critic Steve Bornfeld.

There’s a Vegas show called “Pawn Shop Live!” that’s supposed to be a spoof of the top-rated cable “reality show.” Vegas Steve didn’t like it when it opened early this year, and now that it has been revamped, he likes it even less:

Flashing back to the original Pawn Shop Live! at the Golden Nugget in February, I labeled it “an amateurish misfire of major proportions.” Updating to the rewritten Pawn Shop Live! at the Riviera, I amend that to “an amateurish misfire of TITANIC proportions.”

We suggest authenticity counts with tongue in cheek. Much as we like “Pawn Stars” and appreciate how much it has done to enhance the reputation of pawn shops everywhere, life with Rick and the family is not really what pawnbroking is like.

Pawnshops, including our Maui pawn shop, do get fascinating, rare and curious items from time to time, but emphasize time to time. Not all the time, like on “Pawn Stars.”

Here’s a secret: TV reality shows are scripted. And not only that, but a show like “Pawn Stars” has agents who comb the country for telegenic items to “pawn.” The owners, who get a chance to explain their treasures on a big stage, cooperate but those are not real transactions.

The valuation offered by Rick may be authentic,  but it’s all for show not dough.

If you think about it for a moment, you can understand. It costs thousands — in the case of “Pawn Stars” tens of thousands — of dollars to create each minute of program. The producers cannot wait around until the next interesting customer walks in.

Even “Antiques Roadshow,” which does draw thousands of hopefuls to each city it visits, sends out advance agents to recruit good antiques and even arranges to transport the big items (like Federal-period highboys) to the auditorium where the show is taped.

If you want to see a real pawn shop in action, come down to 52 North Market Street any day of the week. But you might have to wait several days for any excitement.

Why they pawn — playing the long iron game

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As we often say here at Kamaaina Loan blog, unlike at the bank, you don’t have to tell us why you want to borrow money. It’s don’t ask, don’t tell at the pawnbroker.

You could call it a sad iron

You could call it a sad iron

But sometimes we wonder, all the same.

From Bangkok, an unusual example of how a customer uses a pawnshop:

It seems he pawned an iron — Lovestar brand — 15 years ago and has been paying interest on it regularly ever since. Since he’s not rolling over the interest, it isn’t a case of owing much more than the iron is worth.

According to the Bangkok Post, pawn shop employee Nattarak Peekklang thinks, “The customer may think that his iron is better kept inside the shop’s safe than at his home.”

Maybe. But he isn’t taking the iron out to use it from time to time then returning it to “storage.” He isn’t even using his iron the way David Copperfield’s old nurse, Peggotty, did in Dickens’ novel, pawning hers for sixpence each Friday and redeeming it each Monday because she never can keep to a budget.

But Mr. Nattrarak follows the international Code of the Pawnbroker:

 

I never ask him why he doesn’t pay it all off at once

 


#maui #mauipawn #mauiloan

Boston pawnbrokers save the day

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Imaging-resource.com, a website for serious photographers, alerts us to this heartwarming story that will resonate with many, many visitors to Maui who have lost cameras — to trunk poppers or otherwise.

 

A Nikon D3100

A Nikon D3100

Someone found a camera left on the Red Line and brought it to Michael Goldstein at Empire Loan. The con artist didn’t know what he had or even how to turn it on. When Empire’s alert pawnbrokers began asking questions, he fled, leaving the camera.

Goldstein then used photos in the camera memory to sleuth out the owners, who had posted a lost-and-found appeal on Craigslist. He is shipping the camera to them at their home in Spain.

Image-resources has some good advice for vacationers and their cameras, including this one:

Get a card reader for your tablet or smartphone and use it to back up your photos while you’re on vacation—that way, if the camera gets swiped, at least you’ll still have your shots.

Honeymooner alert: We cannot recall all the pathetic appeals over the years from honeymooners on Maui who lost (usually, had stolen out of their rental car) their wedding photos. Listen to Liam McCabe at image-resources. It couldn’t hurt.

#Maui #maui photo #maui vacation #lost camera

New but old pawn shop guitar treasures

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OK, we love this essay  by Jol Dantzig at PremierGuitar.com, but nowhere does he tell what the prices of these “pawn  shop treasures” have gotten  to. Just that they are up.

Music to our ears.

The times are certainly a-changin’, with inexpensive department store guitars of the ’60s (like this vintage Danelectro) becoming highly collectible.

The times are certainly a-changin’, with inexpensive department store guitars of the ’60s (like this vintage Danelectro) becoming highly collectible.

The headline is:

Esoterica Electrica: Pawnshop Plywood Chic Comes of Age

It’s all about the collectibility — and even musical desirability — of cheap guitars from Sears and similar places. Dantzig says:

Additionally, economics have been shifting the landscape around us. The handmade, classic instruments made from old-growth woods have been steadily climbing in price since the 1970s, and modern recreations aren’t inexpensive either. It’s difficult to find a 1950s or ’60s instrument for a working musician’s wage unless you turn to student guitars from the likes of Silvertone, Harmony, and Kay. But wait, you say they’re making those guitars again? The “mystery wood” warriors of yesteryear have increased in value to the point where new production is viable.

Well, we learn something new everyday. Until reading this, our pawnbrokers would not have considered a ’60s-era Silvertone electric,  but now we know better. If you have one, we’ll make an offer and try to find it a good home with some impecunious bluesman or -woman.

#maui #maui music

Presidential diamonds

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At Kamaaina Loan, we like to say we never know what will come over the counter next. But we have never had a First Lady’s diamond tiara yet. The famous Rick Harrison at Gold and Silver Pawn has beaten us to it.

Mrs. McKinley wearing tiara (Photo from Akron Beacon Journal)

Mrs. McKinley wearing tiara
(Photo from Akron Beacon Journal)

The TV pawn superstar obtained a diamond tiara once worn by the wife of President McKinley.

He has offered to sell it at his price, $43,000, to the McKinley Museum in Ohio. Presidential museums and libraries are not tax-supported but depend on donations by (usually) supporters who backed the man in office.

That’s why money is being raised for a Barack Obama library — with Hawaii and Chicago expected to compete for the location — right now. But it is only in fairly recent times that  big political money has flowed into presidential libraries. There is nobody around now who backed McKinley, who was shot in 1900.

So the Ohio museum seems a bit dubious about whether it can come up with the $43,000.