Caltrops - Peter Molyneux's The Movies





	[quote name="Quinn DeAngelo"]The History Channel has a program called <i>Pawn Stars</i>. the name is a play on "Porn Stars." It's about the three men who operate the Gold And Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, and how people bring things in to sell or to pawn. Now, the show does not have that many scenes of people pawning stuff, mostly it's people who sell stuff. And it is amazing that if nothing else, you would think with these guys having been on TV for several years, that the people bringing stuff in would know that these guys are running a business and when they buy something, they have to buy it for <i>a lot</i> than retail, typically about 50%. But almost everyone who comes in who wants to sell something usually wants on the close order of twice what it's worth. There's an old saying with buying and selling anything (especially with respect to jewelry or precious metals) that you buy at retail and sell at wholesale. If you're going to buy it, you're going to end up paying near retail price, but if you have to sell it, it's typically a reseller you're going to, and the reseller is only going to pay the wholesale price. Sometimes they get an appraisal, and wouldn't you know it, the appraiser gives the estimated retail price it could get in a retail sale, and the customer thinks that's what he should be able to get when he sells it, not realizing that since he's selling it, he has to sell it at wholesale or the dealer can't make any money. Then there's the people who claim that if the seller can't make any money, it's not their problem. Oh yes it is, the buyer isn't getting it for his own account, he's buying it so he can resell it, and often the customers are not going to offer the full asking price, they haggle with him too. And a lot of these people get hugely upset or angry that the store won't buy something at their (far beyond sanity) price, and say that they could have sold it for a lot more money. Or that they're going to regret the money they're not going to get by selling it. Well, they're rich, I think they didn't get that way by losing sales and not making good choices in buying and selling things. My thought, on occasion, is that if the crap they're selling is clearly so valuable that the store could easily get that much, why ain't you sold it for that? I mean, if you want to spend two dollars or less, you can run a sale on eBay with a large reserve, and you can discover how much the item would sell for, and the worst it's gonna cost you is the listing fee. Then you can find out in the real world that you're kidding yourself and it won't sell for anywhere near the amount you're jerking yourself off thinking you'd get. <hr width="200px" align=left></hr>Nobody can get no sleep There's someone on everyone's toes But when Quinn DeAngelo gets here Everybody's gonna want to doze[/quote]