106 replies to this topic

[Metal Ghost]

Atari_Bill, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:11 AM, said:

Metal Ghost, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:42 AM, said:

Last night on a new Pawn Stars a lady brought in something like 4 Game and Watch games. I was kind of in the middle of something so I didn't see exaclty what they were and how much she ended up selling them for, if she even did. I did hear that she was asking like $400 or $500 for them, and I think Corey countered first at $100, then he may have upped it a bit. I really wish I had been able to watch that part uninterupted, though I'm sure it will be on again!

The one last night with the game & watches ticked me off!  I typically like Pawn Stars and think they're for the most part above board on their honesty.  Last night did not show that side.  Cory (the son) offered the woman $150 for 6 Nintendo Game & Watch units.  One was still in box.  He eventually came up to $250 which she took.  His reasoning to her was that it would take a while to sell, they're too new to really be collectible, etc.  After she took the money and left he started bragging about how many gamers come into Vegas and he could easily resell them for $100 each.

Ok, I understand you are in business to make money and clear profit.  That's fine, just don't screw over your customers and brag about it on camera.  I lost a LOT of respect for him and his business ethics in that show.

In fairness to them though, these guys typically need to pull in a gross profit of about 40% to 50% in order to make money.  Because out of that you can figure 20% to 25% goes as contribution towards overhead, leaving between 30% to 25% for profit, which is fair.  Anything less than that and it starts not being worth their time.  Of course for bigger items you can trim % off and still make money.  So it seems like if they get what they're going to price these at they may be a bit ahead, but nothing in the unfair range (my opinion only).

I mean, if you want to try to absolutely maxamize your profit, have a garage sale or eBay it.  If you want cash now, take what the man's willing to pay.

I'm just saying that because I've seen them on Pawn Stars on several occassions tell a person that they'd love to give them what the person was asking, but couldn't in good concious because it was worth a lot more.

Also, I've found that I really think these shows (Storage Wars is the worst at this) seem to inflate the 'value' of the stuff they find.  My wife and I were watching this one episode recently and Hester (I think) got this big locker with boxes and boxes of used books, and he says that he could get something like either $100 or $150 per box of books.  My wife and I busted out laughing.  If the books were brand new, and you had a bookstore, and you were willing to sit on them for years, you may have been able to get that much for these boxes, but not otherwise.  And since there were so many boxes of books, it inflated the value part of the equation so much that compared to the cost of the auction it made the whole thing look like a windfall for the guy.  Yea, right.

So I think that they kind of have to show some bravado in the parts of these show where they 'value' the stuff....the producers probably tell them to estimate on the high side, because if they didn't where would the excitement be for all us poor, uneducated viewers?

[Classic Pac]

Which leaves a question to those like me are those Nintendo Game and Watch units worth $100 each? I did a little checking and they generally go for around $40 to $60 a piece.

[SlowCoder]

Classic Pac, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:30 PM, said:

Which leaves a question to those like me are those Nintendo Game and Watch units worth $100 each? I did a little checking and they generally go for around $40 to $60 a piece.

You may be right ... but these guys are "celebrities", so people going to their "store" may pay more just to say they bought something from them.  Bragging rights.

I personally think they're all twerps, so I doubt I'd stop in their shop even if I happened to be walking by.

[retrogamer73]

The guys don't know what there talking about with anything video game releated. Their ego seems to add to the price, recently there ebay shop listed the Virtual Boy that was featured on a episode, and had a reserve of like $350. They seem to think there megastars or something, and people would pay anything for something they've touched.

[retrogamer73]

Classic Pac, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 4:30 PM, said:

Which leaves a question to those like me are those Nintendo Game and Watch units worth $100 each? I did a little checking and they generally go for around $40 to $60 a piece.

There worth about that much. All that episode did was make the not so cheap price of Game and Watch units go up.

[kirin jensen]

Metal Ghost, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:22 PM, said:

Atari_Bill, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:11 AM, said:

Metal Ghost, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 7:42 AM, said:

Last night on a new Pawn Stars a lady brought in something like 4 Game and Watch games. I was kind of in the middle of something so I didn't see exaclty what they were and how much she ended up selling them for, if she even did. I did hear that she was asking like $400 or $500 for them, and I think Corey countered first at $100, then he may have upped it a bit. I really wish I had been able to watch that part uninterupted, though I'm sure it will be on again!

The one last night with the game & watches ticked me off!  I typically like Pawn Stars and think they're for the most part above board on their honesty.  Last night did not show that side.  Cory (the son) offered the woman $150 for 6 Nintendo Game & Watch units.  One was still in box.  He eventually came up to $250 which she took.  His reasoning to her was that it would take a while to sell, they're too new to really be collectible, etc.  After she took the money and left he started bragging about how many gamers come into Vegas and he could easily resell them for $100 each.

Ok, I understand you are in business to make money and clear profit.  That's fine, just don't screw over your customers and brag about it on camera.  I lost a LOT of respect for him and his business ethics in that show.

In fairness to them though, these guys typically need to pull in a gross profit of about 40% to 50% in order to make money.  Because out of that you can figure 20% to 25% goes as contribution towards overhead, leaving between 30% to 25% for profit, which is fair.  Anything less than that and it starts not being worth their time.  Of course for bigger items you can trim % off and still make money.  So it seems like if they get what they're going to price these at they may be a bit ahead, but nothing in the unfair range (my opinion only).

I mean, if you want to try to absolutely maxamize your profit, have a garage sale or eBay it.  If you want cash now, take what the man's willing to pay.

I'm just saying that because I've seen them on Pawn Stars on several occassions tell a person that they'd love to give them what the person was asking, but couldn't in good concious because it was worth a lot more.

Also, I've found that I really think these shows (Storage Wars is the worst at this) seem to inflate the 'value' of the stuff they find.  My wife and I were watching this one episode recently and Hester (I think) got this big locker with boxes and boxes of used books, and he says that he could get something like either $100 or $150 per box of books.  My wife and I busted out laughing.  If the books were brand new, and you had a bookstore, and you were willing to sit on them for years, you may have been able to get that much for these boxes, but not otherwise.  And since there were so many boxes of books, it inflated the value part of the equation so much that compared to the cost of the auction it made the whole thing look like a windfall for the guy.  Yea, right.

So I think that they kind of have to show some bravado in the parts of these show where they 'value' the stuff....the producers probably tell them to estimate on the high side, because if they didn't where would the excitement be for all us poor, uneducated viewers?

Yeah, Dave Hester on Storage Wars totally pulls prices out his ass. He'll point to chipboard furniture and say it's worth $300. Most of the others on that show aren't near as bad, but there's a lot of price inflation going on. The worst for me are Auction Hunters and American Pickers, where the douchey guys on the show are constantly exchanging looks they seem to think mean "Oooh yeah. Watch the masters at work." but always look a lot more like "Oooh yeah. Load up the Rape Van. It's amputee hookers and midget prostitutes tonight!"

[vrocko]

Guys, guys, you gotta take all these guys say with a grain of salt. Most of them are clueless on the items that they pick up, even though on the show they seem to "know it all." It's complete and utter BS. My niece's husband had a place right next door to the Pawn Stars place. He's and my niece have been in and out of the place lots of times and he said it's all staged. NONE of that is for real.

I saw one Pawn Star's episode where a guy wanted to pawn his Russian MIG he owned. He was in the Air Force and when the USSR fell apart and became a democracy he got a chance to purchase MIG's that were for sale. He bought one. Then he takes it to the Pawn Stars to sell. NOW WHY would you take a Russian MIG to a pawn shop of all places to sell? There is probably a better market out there for it and he wouldn't get anywhere near the $200,000.00 he was asking for it?

It's the same for video games. Why take it to a pawn shop when there's eBay, Game Gavel, Craigslist and other places to sell it for more. I've seen most of the episodes from the other series, Auction Hunters, American Pickers, Storage Wars, Antiques Roadshow, etc.. my Mom loves these shows. When one of the guys on Storage Wars pulled out a NES and said it was worth $100 to $150 I about fell over. You can get them at a quarter of that price with games.

They have no clue. All of us do this on a daily basis, we know where the market is, we know what to ask for it, what's reasonable, what's not. They also live in California and out west, prices are higher, costs are higher. I can get a NES in Ohio for about $20 to $25, I bought one about 6 months ago for $20, I've got 3 Atari 2600's at home that I might be able to get $15 a piece for as long as I throw in some good R1 games. I'm in Youngstown, Ohio, things are cheap here, except gas, because the economy around here sucks. People see these shows that know nothing about video games and assume it's gospel, if it's on the internet/TV it must be true!

I've been collecting, trading and selling video games since the 70's, when this all started, and I know alot of you have too so when you see these guys pricing video games and systems just have a laugh cause you know they are CLUELESS!

Rich

[Seob]

As is with all shows on tv. Normal everyday things just aren't good for attracting people to watch the show.

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:48 PM, said:

I'm in Youngstown, Ohio, things are cheap here, except gas, because the economy around here sucks.

Bet gas is cheap over there in the usa. Here in the Netherlands the price for 1 gallon of gas is 9.10 dollar. Bet gas price sounds cheap now.

[jhd]

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:48 PM, said:

Guys, guys, you gotta take all these guys say with a grain of salt. Most of them are clueless on the items that they pick up, even though on the show they seem to "know it all." It's complete and utter BS. My niece's husband had a place right next door to the Pawn Stars place. He's and my niece have been in and out of the place lots of times and he said it's all staged. NONE of that is for real.

This makes sense -- how is one person supposed to be able to ascertain market prices for everything from tools to antique china to furniture to video games?

[SRGilbert]

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:48 PM, said:

People see these shows that know nothing about video games and assume it's gospel, if it's on the internet/TV it must be true!

On the upside, as a seller, it makes it a little easier to get a fair price if people think they are getting a good deal!

[NE146]

jhd, on Sun Feb 12, 2012 5:29 PM, said:

A recent episode showed one of the regulars finding an SNES, complete in box (or, at least, the box). He casually announced that it was easily worth $200, before he moved on to other stuff in the locker.

It makes me question the value that gets assigned to all of the other stuff (e.g. tools, jewlery, furniture); does any of this stuff ever get re-sold for what they think it's worth?

I don't know but I paid $200 for my SNES.


'Course it was brand new, and 1991. But still.

[vrocko]

Seob, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:12 PM, said:

As is with all shows on tv. Normal everyday things just aren't good for attracting people to watch the show.

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:48 PM, said:

I'm in Youngstown, Ohio, things are cheap here, except gas, because the economy around here sucks.

Bet gas is cheap over there in the usa. Here in the Netherlands the price for 1 gallon of gas is 9.10 dollar. Bet gas price sounds cheap now.

Dude! That really sucks! I thought $3.79 a gallon was bad, I'm so sorry, that's just wrong, time to revolt on all oil companies. $9.10? Wow I'd have to take out a loan just for gas in my car.

[SlowCoder]

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 7:00 PM, said:

Seob, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:12 PM, said:

As is with all shows on tv. Normal everyday things just aren't good for attracting people to watch the show.

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:48 PM, said:

I'm in Youngstown, Ohio, things are cheap here, except gas, because the economy around here sucks.

Bet gas is cheap over there in the usa. Here in the Netherlands the price for 1 gallon of gas is 9.10 dollar. Bet gas price sounds cheap now.

Dude! That really sucks! I thought $3.79 a gallon was bad, I'm so sorry, that's just wrong, time to revolt on all oil companies. $9.10? Wow I'd have to take out a loan just for gas in my car.

Or get healthy and hop on a bike.  Yeah, those prices over here would change a lot of things, and a lot of how we do things.

[Brad2600]

retrogamer73, on Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:06 PM, said:

This whole reseller show thing is just one big fad. So many people watch Storage Wars Pawn Stars and the countless other reseller shows to know what to look out for. But they don't realize that the estimates are always way over what the stuff is actully worth, and these people pulling numbers out of there a## have no idea what there talking about. So a lot of people are out there buying every piece of junk and storage locker they see thinking there going to make a fortune, only to find out they just threw their money away. If you have a lot of money to "invest" just buy something you want instead, don't waste it. The sooner people realize that the better. All these shows and reseller wannabes do is just make the prices go up, and make collecting harder. Because of things like Darrell Sheets saying SNES is worth $200, and all of these overpriced BINs on ebay. It's starting to get hard to find decent deals outside of ebay, because people just choose to sell there stuff on there, or ask outrageous prices for stuff. This fad will probably blow over soon, I really hope it does. Seriously how much longer can these shows last?

As long as people are paying attention to them.

They're very pathetic though. I don't see the thrill in buying someone else's stuff and they don't have any control over it.

And yes, they are morons. Ditto for those on PawnStars. Must be made by the same company.

[Desfeek]

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 7:00 PM, said:

Seob, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:12 PM, said:

As is with all shows on tv. Normal everyday things just aren't good for attracting people to watch the show.

vrocko, on Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:48 PM, said:

I'm in Youngstown, Ohio, things are cheap here, except gas, because the economy around here sucks.

Bet gas is cheap over there in the usa. Here in the Netherlands the price for 1 gallon of gas is 9.10 dollar. Bet gas price sounds cheap now.

Dude! That really sucks! I thought $3.79 a gallon was bad, I'm so sorry, that's just wrong, time to revolt on all oil companies. $9.10? Wow I'd have to take out a loan just for gas in my car.

Last time I was in the Netherlands, minimum wage was 15 euro and the exchange rate was about $1.50/euro.  Prominence of bicycling creates less of a need for gasoline - therefore, they can afford the little gas they use.

On topic: I love the American Pickers.  They never do video game stuff, aside from the odd pinball machine or arcade cabinet.  I distinctly saw them pass over a Vectrex one time.  But what they know, they at least know better than I do - and I find their negotiation tips to be quite helpful.  I like their odd style of going after junked-up items over minty fresh, its just a fun show.  The rest of them /sigh

[AtariLeaf]

Looks like Mark Balelo committed suicide after a drug arrest.

[Atari_Bill]

In more news for this thread, did anyone happen to see Pawn Stars last night?  Someone brought in (2) Nintendo World Championship games.  One grey and one gold.  I think he wanted $30,000 for both if I recall correctly.  Of course the shop didn't even get close to that and he ended up keeping them.  I was shocked that he had both though.  He had documentation showing he had purchased them from a contest finalist.

[AtariLeaf]

That's Pat the NES Punk.

I remember him doing a video about those carts with AVGN.

Edited by AtariLeaf, Tue Feb 12, 2013 5:43 PM.

[NinjaWarrior]

How many Gold NWC's are left

[slab0meat]

Yes, saw it.  Seemed basically like publicity.  No chance he would sell to lowball Pawners.

[Atari_Bill]

I figured as much.  I still don't know why some folks accept their offers in the first place when they're obviously so low balled.

[Arkhan]

I laugh when I see that stuff.   The dudes are experts in dumb old crap like coins and buttons, but you show them games, they TRY to act like an expert, but you know they're not even going to know how to hook it up.


That "Hardcore Pawn" show is the worst.

The dad's a wannabe tough guy, the sons a clueless dumbass, and the daughter is an ignorant bitch.

Pardon my french.  I don't think there's a better way to explain it.

[Tr3vor]

Arkhan, on Wed Feb 13, 2013 12:30 PM, said:

That "Hardcore Pawn" show is the worst.

Oh boy, yes it is. It seems every episode there is some psycho serial killer dude freaking out trowing punches and shit, and that intro music oh gosh. If you are trying to make it sound like you're overdriving the speakers in the TV, you're doing it WRONG. It absolutely sounds horrible.

There is only one image that describes this show.

[NinjaWarrior]

Again, How many Gold NWC's are out there in the wild?

[AtariLeaf]

Arkhan, on Wed Feb 13, 2013 12:30 PM, said:

That "Hardcore Pawn" show is the worst.

The dad's a wannabe tough guy, the sons a clueless dumbass, and the daughter is an ignorant bitch.

Pardon my french.  I don't think there's a better way to explain it.

Its scares the crap outta me every day that I live across the river from that god-awful city. That show has more in common with Jerry Springer than Pawn Stars.

Edited by AtariLeaf, Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:36 PM.