After growing up on a steady diet of crime and horror movies from the 1970s and 1980s, I’ve always had it burned into my brain that pawn shops are SHAAAAAADY places.
I’m sure that’s not always the case, but the ones I’ve been in aren’t exactly wholesome.
That said, these AskReddit users who work in pawn shops seem totally fine, and they were even nice enough to share the weirdest items people have tried to sell them over the years.
1. That’s disturbing
“There’s an antique store nearby with a cat skeleton under the glass at the counter for $250. Not too creepy but if you look close there’s bits of dried flesh stuck to it here and there. Seems very much like someone did a half-assed job scraping the flesh off of a dead cat and managed to get the store to buy it from them.”
2. Used, huh?
“Someone donated a box of used sex toys. I was told to put on gloves and save the batteries but chuck the rest. I chucked it all.”
3. Novelty?
“My dad owns a pawn shop, had a woman come in with a bag full of shoe laces. My dad bought it for 20 bucks because of the novelty.”
4. He lost it
“Weirdest was the man who brought a duffle bag full of loose paper and used spiral notebooks. I offered him a quarter. He lost his head. That image will forever be ingrained into my mind. “
5. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
“Went to a pawn store in Tennessee that was selling animal faces. Yeah, you read that right. They were skinning their faces off and selling them separately. My daughter bought one on clearance because it had a rip near the nose.”
6. Don’t need that
“I spent the better part of a decade managing a pawn shop.
Creepy is always people that would come in and have porn in their vcr/dvd when they tried to pawn it creepiest was the guy that left the tape in of him getting it.
Probably the most messed up are people that try and come in and sell their dead relatives. It was pretty common for people to try and sell urns and necklaces with ashes in them. In Louisiana it’s illegal to deal in human remains of any kind.”
7. Weird
“Not creepy but I borrowed someone money on a movie script they written once. The money was small but wasn’t insignificant. Had story boards and designs for the characters and which actors he wanted to play them. Some A list celebs for sure. We would have discussions on what we would do with this is item if we owned it. Could we sell it? Is there IP rights we would have to deal with. Would we just toss it and sell the case that it came in and just laugh about it for years to come?
Fortunately the guy came back 3 weeks later and paid for it back. I was so hoping that it would be in theaters one day but it never happened.
Been working the business for 10 years now and after the first year or so everything starts to blend together. I’ve read some responses about people not taking in some of the creepy stuff but I hope everyday something interesting/creepy comes in and of course I’m buying it for the story and too feel like my job isn’t pawning on cell phones, laptops, tablets and tvs all day long which it is now.
Send me your ashes, sex toys, anything goofy and ill make an offer for sure!”
8. Must’ve been close
“Definitely ashes of a loved one. Oh, and they wanted to keep the damn urn.”
9. Man, that’s sad
“Definitely the worst for me is when junkies bring in their children’s tablets and gaming systems. Sometimes the kid will even scratch in something along the lines of “please don’t pawn” on the device.”
10. He’ll be back
“I’m a manager of a pawn shop & I’d say the weirdest thing we’ve taken in on pawn is a prosthetic leg. It was a safe bet though cause the guy legitimately needed it.”
