Rick Harrison: Wild Pawn Shop Stories | Trending Now

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1:18You have a lot of good stories, and I want to kind of run through some of them. Okay. In terms of shop patrons over the years. Oh, my God. I've seen everything. How about most famous person who's ever come through the doors? That's a tough one. It's just how you consider famous, you know what I mean? Like the coolest person I ever thought came in there was when Ronnie Montrose came in. He was considered one of the greatest guitar players to ever live. I've had, oh my gosh, you know, like Bret Michaels comes in there. He's also a friend of mine. whenever Brett is in town, I always sing the last song on stage with him.

2:01Oh, that's fun. The joke is he turns my mic down a lot. He actually does. No, but I've sang on stage with him probably 20 times. Billy Gibbons, you know who he is? The name's... ZZ Topper. Okay, got it. He comes in. Steve Carell, I filmed with him. Chappelle actually shops in the shop sometimes. Really? Yeah. He's never been on the show, but he shows up and buys stuff. What have they said about him? They said he's really nice. Yeah. My employees are kind of used to, like, a lot of celebrities coming to there. It's one of the funnest jobs in the world because it's definitely not assembly line work.

2:42I get to meet different people every day, different items. It's been an amazing life working down there. A finance minister of a Southeast Asia country who is gambling with his country's money. Literally, you know, putting up a lot of stuff and, like, throwing down a diplomatic passport. And what do you do in that situation? I put up stuff. Yeah. I don't care if you've got diplomatic immunity. You're not going to get it back unless you pay me. How about the$27 ,000 a month trust fund kid? Oh, yeah. And he wasn't even a kid. He was, like, in his 40s or 50s. I mean, like, and literally just every month, like, he'd get his check and go straight to the casino, gamble his ass off, and then buy, like, the 15th or the 16th, plotting his so he could live for the rest of the month.

3:31I'm just thinking, he might have, like, I mean, this went on for years and years. But he got, like, a couple million dollar payout on his 50th birthday. And then spent, like, I had like a 48-hour bender down at like the horseshoe downtown and blew every penny of it. I don't get it. I like, you know. You have a unique way of dealing with people at the shop who steal, right? Or at least you used to. Oh, I used to, yeah. What would happen? Well, one of the first, well, I'd always take their driver's license from them. I'm like, no, you stole from me. I'm stealing this from you. Because for like a tweaker, getting a new ID is a lot worse than going to jail.

4:14for a day or two. You got into a fight with a ton of tweakers once in the parking lot, right? Yeah. What happened there? There was a bunch of them. They fought a bunch of my employees in the pawn shop. There's a million different stories. I don't even remember them all, but like, yeah. I can't tell you how many fist fights I've been at the shop. Like, some guy tried to steal from me. Like, you're really going to go to Swingin' before you just give me it back? And they do. What's the worst fight you remember ever getting in? That was one guy who was actually breaking into my car in the parking lot.

4:52That's where I actually fractured my face. He fractured my face right here. What happened? I found out my face was fractured later. No, I ended up kicking his ass and he started running. He ran off. How many times have you been offered sex at the pawn shop? Oh, I can't tell you how many times, yeah. You have to understand, a lot of people shove at a pawn shop, they're in a desperate situation. You know, and I've had, well, I'd be like, no, honey, I'm cool. Never accepted? Nope. What's the most memorable story on that front? One of the most memorable stories, okay, so like this is way back in the day, because across the street from the pawn shop used to be the Normandy Motel.

5:38and I literally have these two nuns. I mean, have it and all, okay? Nuns, okay? And they have their little, they want to sell some of their little ceramic figurines for some reason, like, okay? And I'm thinking to my head, I'm going like, I'll just give them more than I can sell them for because they're nuns and they do good work in the world and everything like that. And they're right there and I'm looking out the window right there and there's like three naked hookers walking across the balcony at the Normandy Motel right there, like really, really awkward because I did not want the nuns to turn and look out the window.

6:13And I'm like, oh my God, what kind of job do I have?

6:20Purchases at the pawn shop. Why buy gold teeth? Because it's gold. It's worth$2 ,900 an ounce. Somebody once came and asked you for pliers. I think that was, there was some people on some other shifts, that's happened, yeah. Yeah. It's funny, I don't get people, they pull some teeth out of their mouth, yeah. And they've literally put bloody gold on the counter. Yeah, I've seen that happen before. Why'd you wear a fake Rolex for five years? Teach myself a lesson. Which was what? Don't buy bike Rolexes. Explain how many wedding rings you went through when you were married. Oh, tons. Why? because a lot of times I would resell them because the customer needed them, or a lot of the times I used them for sizing stock.

7:12So when you size a ring, you literally got to cut the shank, cut the bottom of the shank right there, open it up, and add a piece of gold or add a piece of platinum or something like that. And a lot of times I would just, didn't have any sizing stock, cut my ring apart, use it for sizing stock. A wedding ring is just a thing. OK? And like people, this is a question I get from a lot of people when I get interviewed. It's like, don't you feel bad buying family heirlooms? I'm going, it's just a thing. At least they had that thing to get them by. If they didn't have that thing, they wouldn't have gotten by.

7:44So it's a good thing. Yeah, but the alternative, I mean, the difference is you didn't need that thing to get you by. Oh, yeah. There is an emotional attack. Yeah, but in the end, I made money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I paid the bills. It's a wedding ring. Yeah, it's a wedding ring. Yeah. The first Patriots Super Bowl ring, do you still have it? No, I ended up selling it. Why? Because I got offered just stupid money. You know, like the adage, like, you know, everything's got a price tag. Not everything, but almost. The 200-year-old Japanese porn scroll? I ended up selling that, yeah. Got some really good money for that.

8:23I think I got like 30 grand for that. 1 ,200-year-old Bengal bracelet? Well, you mean 1 ,200-year-old Viking bracelet? Oh, Viking bracelet. Okay. This is 1 ,200 years old. This is a Viking bracelet. Give a little bit of the history. No, so I actually got it off the Viking curator at the Met. It has all the x-ray analysis on it. It's identical to 8th-century English coins. And it was from a Viking horde. The only problem is if you fall asleep wearing it, you'll dream of raping and pillaging. You've had it for how long? Probably 10 years, yeah. OK. It's one of the coolest things I own. I just love weird stuff.

9:02Will you keep that? Or do you think you'll end up selling that? I mean, like, if someone offered me stupid money, I'd probably sell it. The OJ Bronco. So this is it. The OJ Bronco. Wow. That was just weird. They really wanted me to film with that. I'm just like, god, it's got bad mojo. So, you know, so it was a weird episode. I really didn't want to do it. They sort of talked me into it. But, you know, in the end, it was made good TV. One quick thing before you leave, please consider giving the podcast a rating and review. Those go a really long way in helping us reach new listeners.

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