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Appreciation post: the pawn shop guy in Reno popped the back off a $40 "gold" chain and I finally get why he did it
I saw one of those viral clips last month where a guy finds a gold chain in a parking lot and the comments swore it was worth 3 grand. I took a chain I'd had sitting in a drawer for 6 years to a pawn shop on Virginia Street in Reno, mostly to see if the clip was real. The guy behind the counter didn't weigh it or test it with acid first, he just popped the clasp open with a tiny screwdriver and showed me a stamp that said 14K but was stamped crooked and too deep. He said fakes get stamped hard like that because the press is cheap, and real ones use a light laser mark. That one detail was never in the video, so now I always flip the clasp before I believe any of those finds. Anyone else learned a check like that from a person instead of the internet?
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ray_sullivan13d ago
Man, that pawn guy just saved you three grand and a whole lot of daydreaming about that parking lot clip! The crooked deep stamp thing makes total sense when you think about it, a cheap press slams it hard while a real laser mark barely kisses the metal. So basically the internet taught us to squint at blurry videos while a guy with a tiny screwdriver taught you the actual truth in ten seconds.
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