Model 320 revolving rifle on Pawn Stars

Muss Muggins

Muss Muggins

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Watching Pawn Stars marathon this morning while assembling lasagna for supper and waiting for the Cardinal game to start. From a 2014 episode, a woman brought in a S&W 320 revolving rifle which she had purchased at a garage sale. The barrel had been cut down to use as a pistol, and she had thrown away the detachable stock, not realizing it went with the firearm. Ending up selling it for $875. The "expert" agreed with Supica that it would have been much more valuable with the stock, even with the barrel cut down, as the stock may have been worth as much as $5,000 - $6,000 by itself.

I grabbed the S&W 4th to read along as the discussion evolved, and the information on the show pretty well matched the info in the Standard Catalog. Great way to learn something new . . .
 
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My apologies for not searching for, finding, and reading a three year old, 32 post thread of which exactly 3 posts were directly related to the rifle I posted about, and several others were complaining about Pawn Stars in general. I came across the Pawn Stars episode quite accidentally, and had no real specific interest in the 320 beforehand. Had I posted on that thread, it would have been quickly locked as a zombie thread, and my intent for posting was to demonstrate what a great resource the S&W Standard Catalog is . . .
 
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I recall watching that episode, and about cringed when she took it out and I saw what it was and the condition it was in. I know nothing can be done, but the abuse expensive rare items (not just firearms) suffer in the hands of otherwise well intention people that just wack something up to serve their purpose of the minute, oblivious to historical value.
 
suffer in the hands of otherwise well intention people that just wack something up to serve their purpose of the minute,
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Yea kind of like the Mod 25 I saw a couple years ago - cut to 3", front sight crudely welded on and PARKERIZED!
 
Club Gun Fan said:
I'd like to take mine to them and see what their "expert" says.
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The key thing to remember is that the expert is gonna low ball it, and then the pawn shop is gonna offer half of the low ball. We play "Guess the First Offer" here during Pawn Stars marathons, and I've gotten pretty good at it. Rick isn't an end buyer. People always forget that . . .
 
Collectors values vary by rarity and condition. For every rare item remaining in existence the value increases by every example that gets ruined. I know that's a cynical approach, but it is reality. Items created to be collector items rarely increase in value. Take the case of collector commemorative guns as advertised in American Rifleman. I haven't looked at one seriously for a number of years, so I don't know the relationship between MSRP and the price of the commemorative, but I'll bet it's a substantial increase. Yet, when it comes time to sell these guns, you'll be lucky to get book price and sometimes far less. One of the reasons is that folks buy these guns expecting to later sell them at great profit. Only to find everyone else has squirreled them away also. No rarity, no value equals bad investment. Same thing with plates, ceramic dolls, etc.

My point is that if you have what you legitimately believe is a collectors item the value of your item increases every time a like item is destroyed.
 
The REAL "Rest of the Story" is the whole thing was fake, except the gun was real. The lady was an actor, the sale was staged and rehearsed before hand, as all "sellers" do on Pawn Stars. No shoulder stock was thrown away, The gun experts are real on Pawn Stars and are all old friends of mine, but they are well paid to follow the script. I declined an offer to appear as an "expert" years ago, as it's all entertainment, not fact, plus Las Vegas is too far to run back and forth every time the producers want to have an antique gun appraised, according to their script. Nothing on Pawn Stars is real, except the items being discussed, and some times they are planted fakes that the expert can "discover." . The rest is all Hollywood entertainment. But I still watch, as the firearms are real and the experts opinions are usually pretty much right on target, especially in detecting fakes and alterations. Some of the firearm and weapons sellers are gun dealers you will see at the annual Las Vegas Winter Antique gun show, who are paid to appear as civilians walking in off the street saying " My wife doesn't want this old gun ( or sword) around the house. etc " and the script says to ask an unreal price to start. The Rick Harris gets to "Call my Buddy" and the expert arrives from stage left to look at the item he has already examined, but can now for the audience pick out the defects and good points and declare a "value range" which is probably accurate for the market at the time of the show. If you're looking at a 5 yr old rerun, the value may not fit your opinion today. Ed.
 
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You mean "reality television" isn't? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked. Next you'll tell me there is gambling going on in the cafe . . .

Last time I was in Vegas my nephew and I were gonna go in to just look around. As our luck would have it, they were filming that day, and they didn't want a couple hillbillies carrying Bud 2x4's in paper sleeves as background customers . . .
 
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6518John said:
So Chumlee is not really an idiot?
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That's the ONLY real part.

Having dealt with a lot of pawn dealers through the years, the big tipoff of fakery to me is the fact that Rick doesn't lowball nearly enough to be a "real" pawnbroker. If I could get his prices from pawn shops around here, I'd make a living doing nothing but selling junk to them.
 
Re my previous post on the prices paid for stuff on this show, the most real -- and entertaining -- episode I have seen was when Rick took a bunch of his prime, most rare, high-priced stuff to a high-falutin' auction in LA to make a killing -- and ended up losing something like 40 grand. So much for his, and his "experts' ", expertise...
 
I go by Pawn Stars location following Las Vegas Boulevard to the area called Down Town. Usually a line of tourist waiting to get in, I don't know how anyone can get in to do real business with them.
 
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Don's an Expert's Expert when it comes to S&Ws, but even among the Expert's it's sometimes necessary to get consensus from others when in doubt. I recall we discussed the Revolving Rifle, Serial # 1 when Don had a chance to buy it from a long time owner. He noticed some differences in the way the stock was attached, etc. from later examples, and asked my opinion. I had examined the gun some years before and was convinced of it's authenticity and so advised Don, so he mortgaged the homestead and bought it. I plan to buy it someday from his estate sale for peanuts. Ed
 
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