$600 Mosin Nagants and other high priced Pawn Shop guns

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I once found an old .32 Llama in a pawn shop on S. Nevada, asking price 189.00$. I was informed that it was a steal at that price ( 12 years ago) because it had never been fired, when I looked in the chamber it was as black as Hillary Clinton's heart. When I pointed this out to the pawn broker he just stared at me , when I informed him that I could get one new at the local gunshop for the same price he told me to go buy it there.

I've seen a 9. mm. Colt in a pawn shop, 600.00$ ( Not unreasonable) but other than that I really haven't seen a good gun in one lots of NEFs, Junkminez, Llamas , Highpoints & Tauri. But really nothing from a reputable manufaturer. Must be a Colorado Springs thing.
 
I love calling these shop owners out. I wont do it when I see one crazy high price because it might be something I am unaware of driving the price of a particular firearm up. But when everything thing in the shop is way way over priced I just ask the shop owner how he sets his prices and watch him squirm.
 
You guys aren't doing your shopping right. These pawn shops set prices sky high as a 'invitation to bid'. I've made quite a few non-gun purchases by telling them what I'll pay for it based on what it's market price is. A Moisin-Nagant is worth $100 at Big 5, and that's what I'll give you for that one. Show them what the gun would sell for over on gunbroker.com and sometimes they come around. The fun thing about pawnshops is you can find stuff there you just don't see much anywhere else. I forget the make, but a local pawnshop has a topbreak revolver, holds 5 rounds of 32. First one I've seen!
 
I wonder if they could just be ignorant and the guy selling it told them a whopper that they bought hook, line, and sinker. Not all FFls are gun guys (ironic I know) and they might have honestly never seen one before.
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Pawn shops are pretty cagey. They have pretty good access to information on what stuff is really worth.

It doesn't hurt them a whole lot to list a $100 item for $500. The chances of selling it are low at that price, but you can always lower the price.
 
Rob62, I, too, am from Georgia. I understand not wanting to name the store, but what town is it in? Just so I know not to go gun shopping in that area.

Wyman
 
I'd take a bet that somebody will buy that mosin nagant. What is it they say about how frequently a sucker is born?
 
Yes, in guns as in *EVERY* conceivable product or service out there in the market place, there is an extraordinary difference in pricing of the same items. Some places just fish for suckers, gouge them unbelievably. They don't make a sale very often, but they don't have to, in order to make a profit. Some places have reasonable prices. Some have good deals. Sometimes the same place will have both terribly overpriced stuff and a few good deals occasionally (BassPro comes to mind). Caveat Emptor is just as true now as it ever was, and yep, sucker born every minute. Whether it's a gun or a carbeurator, you have to do your homework on values, or you WILL get shafted badly.

But I just laugh at pawn shops and places who do that. I'll make a counteroffer if we're in the same ballpark or planet. A $600 Mosin is not even in the same galaxy, so why bother making a counter-offer? They're not gonna come down to a lone benjamin no matter how much haggling you do. You just leave and go to the next place.
 
I've never paid 50% of sticker price in a pawn shop for anything. One time I saw a Beretta 21A pistol on sale for $350 at a local pawn shop.It was positivly filthy. I asked the guy if he would take $100. We went back and forth for about five minutes. He would not go down on price at all. I told him you could buy one(almost two) new at that price. He got all huffy so I disassembled it on the counter and left. He obviously had no idea how to put it back together and was yelling at me as I left. Now if he sells it for $350 at least he can say he had to put labor into the peice to get it to work.
 
Long time lurker here, finally joined recently, and had to jump in on this one.

I dont get the consumer out cry on this kind of thing. Even the BBB wont hear complaints on pricing alone, and there is a reason for that.

Buisiness owners can price however they want, and the people 90% of you encounter and try to show up with your knowledge are not people with intimate knowledge on what the owner has "in" each piece. These encounters are never going to change anything, they are just a big waste of time.

Point in case.

I was at a store where I know the owner in Kerrville Texas. He had a used glock 30 listed at 595$. I wondered why so high. A guy came in that day, traded a taurus .45 for it. He never questioned the price. not once, but was going nuts about getting as much as he could for his Taurus. He was talking the whole time about how great of a gun it is, and how clean it is. The owner smiled at me as if he was making a point. He gave the guy $285 for it, applied that to the 595, and EVERYONE was happy.

If he had the Glock priced at a min. price, he could have never done that deal. The guys pressure point was trade in for his taurus. Any business that trades has to do the same, if they are smart.

If you think the price is high, politely negotiate. If this sets you off, feel free to open your own business and prove the other guy wrong. Or you could make a smart-alec comment and show the world your e-courage.

Just trying to show another point of view. High sticker prices arent always about screwing the consumer.


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Refusing to shop good deals based on another item in the same store being overpriced? Wow, I think most consumers would love a list of these stores that you and others have blacklisted.
 
No, they're not. But a $600 Mosin most certainly IS about screwing the cutomer. Apples & oranges. I've got no problem with the store owner doing it, but I for one damn sure wouldn't ever spend a dime in a place that would gouge the consumer THAT badly. If he can sell it to some suckers, more power to him. But I'm not gonna fund his gouging by buying there, even if I get a good deal on something.
 
But a $600 Mosin most certainly IS about screwing the cutomer.
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Most likely, yes. I've seen similar outrageous prices. You can get vengeance on them by snatching up underpriced firearms as well. I got an M28 Finn from a nasty little pawn broker for $100. It was marked as "Roosian Rifle." The same fellow had a "custom Mauser" hack job for $600.
 
If you think the price is high, politely negotiate. If this sets you off, feel free to open your own business and prove the other guy wrong. Or you could make a smart-alec comment and show the world your e-courage.
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We don't have to open our own businesses. We just have to open up Firefox and surf on over to any number of reasonably priced websites.

I like buying locally, but it's so much cheaper to find a kitchen table FFL and buy from dealers who don't gouge you left and right on products.

That $600 used Glock was bad, although not as much. You can easily find one from any number of reputable dealers on the internet for a little over $450. Looking at J&G sales' inventory, they have used glocks for right about $400- had the guy been a smarter shopper, he could have kept the Taurus and had the Glock as well. Or he could have gotten a NIB glock for only a tiny bit more money.

I understand and can accomodate local dealers who are a "little" higher than the bigger places. How much that "little" can be is generally based on how friendly and easy to work with they are.

However, if you mark up a Mosin Nagant to $600, you either don't know what you have, or you are trying to gouge somebody.
 
been a while since I have patronized the local pawn shops. maybe I should take a trip to them and see what they have these days. I don't expect much.
 
I also thought that all of the M44s were round receivers so a hex receiver would mean it was an earlier model modified into an M44.
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no a hex receiver on an M44 means an earlier receiver was used to make the rifle... examples of receiver and barrel dates not matching on russian made mosins can be found in any model and are somewhat rare

the russians never modified earlier models to make M44s

the only times russians made any modifications in configuartion on existing mosins are...

after 1908-1910 the adoption of the spitzer bullet required a rear sight change along with other modifications to the M91 for various reasons (handguard added, crossbolt added, sling slots added) early configuration M91s are rare and valuable

dragoons also went through a number of changes through the years including some of the above listed modifications

dragoon rifles being updated to 91/30 configuration (simple replacement of the sights and in some cases the handguard) dragoons in original configuration are hard to find and worth a fair bit more than a 91/30

decommissioned snipers... either because the rifle's accuracy fell off below sniper standards or the sudden massive surplus to requirement after the war (they may have made truckloads of snipers during the war but they command a high price because of the truckloads of ex-snipers mean fewer snipers in their correct configuration)

the cutting down of 91/30s and in some rare examples M91s or dragoons to make the 91/59 carbines
 
Wyman - the shop in question is one of the few Pawn Shops in Villa Rica. If you want to know the speciffic one PM me.

My intent on staring this thread was mainly to just vent about some Pawn Shops' ridiculous prices. Not to beat on this speciffic shop - I actually like it and will almost certainly purchase stuff from them in the future.

As has been pointed out many times above, the best recourse not to get burned is to be a knowledgeable shopper. If the sticker price is too high make an offer. If accepted great, if not move on to someone that wants your cash.

FWIW - this particular shop does have *some* reasonably priced guns. Not all are priced like the examples I gave. I have bought quite a few there myself in the past. Examples are a Ruger 10/22 for $125 OTD, Remington 12 ga 870 for around $175 OTD, and about a year ago an almost new Savage 110 with Bushnell scope for $225 OTD. All of these were stickered about $50 -$75 more than the actual prices I paid - about what I would expect their asking price to be.

But if I did want this Mosin, which I don't, with a $600 sticker price I'm not sure there would even be a starting point to haggle from. I did ask the person that works there who I have deald with numerous times why such a high sticker price on this rifle. The response I got was that they loaned a lot more on the rifle than they should have - which begs the question just how much could they possibly have loaned on this rifle. :rolleyes:

Being somewhat familiar with how Pawn Shops work and the loans they give, it would be rare for one to loan more than 50% of the Blue Book value on any gun. Most of the time its in the 25-50% range. And that figure does not include any accessories with the gun such as a sling or case.

So using this Mosin as an example I am guessing that the Blue Book price is around $80-$140, and that's being generous. Most shops would put $70 into the rifle on a loan at the most. That being said, a sticker price of $180-$250 would not shock me. But $600 :eek: :what:

Rob
 
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Just goes to show that the unsuspecting buyer (or sucker) needs to do his research before he plunks down that kind of money for an M44.

www.surplusrifle.com

I bought mine for $109 out the door and with 440 rounds of ammo, total $$ was $190.

"Stupid laws were meant to be broken."
 
Pawn shops used to be the place to get a deal because they wanted to make a profit, now it seems they want to make a killing. I haven't found a deal in one in years.
 
All the pawnshops around here are overpriced. Seems like they sell used guns for the same price as NIB anywhere else.

This is probably a result of the pawnshops around here being chains. Mom-and-Pop pawnshops are increasingly rare.
 
There are very few pawnshop that I check out anymore.

Most of them around here give 10 cents on the dollar for loans and try to sell stuff for 10 percent above new retail price.

One pawn broker chain has a large assortment of used single shot break open shotguns that run between $150-$175 in varying stages of bad condition. I know they didn't pay any more than 20 bucks for it but want to unload them for more than Wallyworld sells them new.

Not to mention that (at least in Topeka) almost all the pawn brokers have rentals in the urban areas (slumlords) and take merchandise in lieu of rent. Over lunch 2 years ago, I watched one guy bring in 20 Alpine car stereos new in box and gave them to the pawn broker for half his rent, about 300 bucks.
 
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