Klarinet Archive - Posting 000455.txt from 1997/09

From: "Tahna Britton" <tahnab@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Pawn Shop Prices
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 16:06:25 -0400

And that's New
> Mexico!
hey, what do you mean, that's New Mexico?!

----------
> From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
> To: klarinet@-----.us
> Subject: Re: Pawn Shop Prices
> Date: Tuesday, September 09, 1997 4:03 AM
>
> Depending on the state, one finds great variance in the quantity
> and quality of clarinets available. On a recent visit to Reno,
> I found several pawnshops, each with 40 or 50 clarinets. But that
> is because a gambler in Reno will pawn anything.
>
> The pawn shop owners were not only ignorant of the value of these
> clarinets, they were stupid in how they displayed them; i.e., in
> the pawnshop window directly attacked by the hot Reno sunlight.
> Most of the wooden ones were badly cracked and worthless. They
> were asking several hundred dollars for each, completely unaware
> of what they were doing to them.
>
> Just to see what would happen, I picked up a Buffet in the window
> (and it had a crack in it into which I could have inserted a
> quarter) and asked what the price was. I was told that it was
> an extremely valuable clarinet, etc., etc. I did my simple
> country boy routine.
>
> The price was $300. I looked very aggrieved. Simply too much
> money. Blah. Blah. I offered him $75 (which I would not have
> given him even if he had accepted the offer - the instrument
> was worthless). He dropped down to $250 without the blink of
> an eye. We hassled for a while and he finally settled on
> $175. I said it was too much and left. Had I worked on it,
> I think he would have come down to $150.
>
> Bottom line is that they offer about $25 to someone who brings in
> an instrument, and then they store it for a couple of years
> before they sell it. So if they get $75, that is a good profit
> on their investment.
>
> Gallup, NM also has lots and lots of pawn shops, but the reason
> for this is very sad. They take advantage of the local indian
> population by buying up tribal jewelry. But every pawn shop
> in town had at least two or three clarinets. >
> Las Vegas is also very good in quantity but disastrous in
> quality.
>
>
> =======================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
> leeson@-----.edu
> =======================================