Storage Wars Stars Find Pirates Gold, $500,000 Worth

Anyone remember Charles Van Doren and the 1950's quiz show "Twenty One"?

 

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Most of these types of "reality" shows are actually reenactments of events that happened on their jobs, with extreme dramatic license (fiction). TruTV has become half full of such programming.

Real reality shows (like COPS) are becoming rare. Not to mention that both types of these reality shows are permeating stations that were originally meant for other programming (MTV, History Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, VH1, Travel Channel, etc., etc.).

 

You're correct. The people coming into the Goldman's shop are bringing in items typical of a pawn shop, i.e. electronics, hand tools, some jewelry(a lot of which turns out to be fake or plated and not worth anything), etc.

In response to vdbpenny:

Pawn Stars puts out a casting call for people with interesting, or high valued items to bring by for the producers to examine and the more interesting and valuable items with the owners are selected for the show. I've worked in pawn shops, and done business with many, and that would be the LAST place someone with a high value item would go to sell it because pawn shops are lowballers.

Most shops don't deal with firearms because of the expense of acquiring and maintaining a FFL, not needed for antique firearms. The most popular items brought into a shop are gold and precious stoned jewelry, electronics, musical instruments, and a small number of numismatic items.

Documents from the 18th century, especially, any signed by a POTUS or some member of Congress or the head of an Government agency from that era, or 18th century era tintypes, etc., not even on a good day do they come into the shops.

Pawn Stars is staged, 100%.

 

You know the show actually pays people good money for marketing right? They are paid six figure salaries to sit around and conjure up ways to entice more viewers. People bid on storage units every single day, all over the world. How often do you hear of people uncovering half a million dollar treasures; let alone while on air?

Thanks for pointing out the defects on the reverse btw

 

Well two points. One is yes these shows are staged, but real stuff like this is found in storage units and auction lots. I personally found a large cent collection in some boxes of junk at an auction, as well as a Lincoln's assassination newspaper from Ottumwa Iowa. It can happen, and people have made great discoveries, and its these things and the popularity of this show that has dramatically raised the prices at similar auctions nationwide.

Two, why does every dang thing that has to do with Central America or the Caribbean from 1500 to 1900 have to be labelled "Pirate" nowadays? These things had as little chance of belonging to a pirate as your 1928 cent has of belonging to John Dillenger. We should label all US money made from 1920-1940 as "Gangster Money!"

Sorry for the rant. Isn't real history good enough for people? I guess not, since it does not have Johnny Depp starring in the role........

Chris

 

Don't forget anyone from Japan pre 1900s was a ninja or a samurai.

Even though it might be staged i do like watching both PawnStars or Hardcore Pawn, never really got into Storage wars...

 

I would imagine people finding treasures at auctions tend to keep it to themselves. Stuff I find at auctions, I don't tell people.

 

People do store vast amounts in storage units.

Anyone remember the nations largest armored car robbery of over 18 million back in 1997. The FBI found most of it located in a storage unit in NC that one of the thieves had rented.

 

Back in 1992 my then brother in law borrowed $300 so he could bid on some wooden storage lockers at a moving company he worked for that had not been paid for in YEARS as the company was moving from three location to one. They got a sterling silver set for 12 , crystal, china, etc all wrapped in newspapers from Nov 1941. They had a great time on a vacation paid for by the items. As we were unwrapping the round wood containers they gave my wife a set of French Limague (Spelling) china and a few nick nacks plus the money he borrowed.

I went to one of the auctions right after that and met a guy who looked like Otis Sistunk the Oakland Raider player. Mean looking. he laso with a permit carried a side arm as he he a big roll of money he showed me. I bought a few items as the lockers were wooden crates and they sold each item as it came out of the wooden 4X8X8 box. He told me to buy kitchen stuff (look for Silver stuff), books (leaf through the pages for cash and stuff) plus books sell to used book stores sometimes for big money and boxes marked dirty clothes, because people put good stuff in those boxes. He also bought all jackets boxes and sleeping bags and donated to people on the streets. Well, I never found anything of great value and it was sad to think that others had lost what they stored. If you ever go to one of those sales bring something to bring your stuff home with, Flash light, work clothes, gloves, swink wrap, a lock, and cash as they do not take charge cards,

I have to go to Las Vegas for business shows twice a year. The Pawn Stars were almost broke before the show, almost everything in the store is over priced and the stars Chum Lee and Cory get paid to go the the Bars at the Casinos because their "fans" will text and tweet were they are and that creates crowds according to the Taxi drivers that I talk to.

 

Very true. The Pawn Stars building is in a shadier part of the north strip. I heard also they weren't doing the greatest until the show. You go in now, (after waiting in line for an hour at least), and everything is overpriced, especially cheap stuff. You see people walking out with old silver certificates, (circulated common 1950's issues), they just paid $15 for to say they bought something there.

 

I love that show, but you'd never know stuff is so overpriced by what they pay for stuff on the show (and the reasoning they give behind it). That's reality TV folks! Giving a glimpse into the real world since 19xx.

 

What I like about Pawn Stars is the entertainment factor involving the things they write for Chumley and the Old Man. I mean who's going to take a nap on the job when there's a camera crew right there? Still funny to watch and you also learn some interesting facts and history from the 'experts' who come in to explain the things brought into the shop.

 

One thing that cracks me up about pawn stars is that no one pawns' their items, why even bother asking do you want to pawn it or sell it.

 

If it's on tv it must be real.:yes:

The Cohen brothers made an excellent movie (Fargo) which began with the line:

"THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred."

Actually, it was fiction. They pieced together different events to create the story. When asked about the claim (THIS IS A TRUE STORY), they said they added it just for fun.

There were stories about people that went hunting for the stashed cash based on what they saw in the movie.

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It sounds like they got their idea from an episode of the Bullwinkle Show, in which the editor of the local newspaper in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, starts a contest
to get the paper's readers looking for buried treasure-- a million dollars, in Confederate money

 

I caught the episode last night that showed Brandi and Jarred who got the locker with this apparent pirates gold. Nothing special, it looked like a decent collection that they pulled from a safe, mostly silver (Morgan's, Barbers, Mercury Dimes, Buffalo nickels, are just some of the coins you caught a glimpse of) and the pirate stuff from what they showed on the show was silver. At the end of the show, they claimed they made a profit of around 5k. The locker looked like it had what would be someone's whole house in it, so likely someone that went over seas that couldn't make payments, intended to never come back and or died.

So give it to TMZ for doing what they do best with their show and reporting, utter crap! Unless what they reported was a different story that wasn't aired last night.