The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Is AL-TV returning or did you find a nice interview? Just tell the folks here.

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minnick27
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The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by minnick27 »

I think you just got extremely lucky sir! And there is not one person here who wouldnt mind being in your shoes. Could you tell us more about the production? Did they have you come back another day? Did you really think you would get on tv with it? What was their initial reaction?
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barsmart
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by barsmart »

I didn't get lucky, you guys who still have your book and a TV show that says "no really it's worth more than $400" are the lucky ones. Check out Amazon right now to see what big sellers are asking for the book, look at old eBay auctions to see what the books have in fact sold for. My book wasn't even professionally graded and it fetched that much from a pawn shop guy who usually undercuts by 30-40% to help make sure there is a profit even if it gets haggled down.

Any of you who paid $30 for it can more than double your money - right now - by taking it to Half Priced books. I took it to them on a lark just to see what they would pay me for it - and they offered $75. Which is right around their usual 90% mark down.

As for the production - I had been looking to see when Al would be back in town (Pittsburgh) and I remembered I had his book, so I thought I'd look and see if he did anything else like it. When I saw, on his site, that it was very rare and you would be luck to have one I went out and priced it. Yeah I was a lot like you guys, "No really? REALLY?" Yes really it seems.

So, being a fan of the show, I went to history.com, emailed the production company with what I have, why it's cool to have on tv, and some photos of it. A day later they asked me if I could be in Vegas for their next taping, and I said sure... so from that point on I knew I had a darn good chance of being on. They don't tape you unless they are already pretty sure they could use the footage.

So we set up a date/time for me to be there and after taping I was 99% sure I would make it. I've done some TV stuff before and the nerves thing doesn't kick in so bad anymore so I knew how to have fun with it and enjoy my time.

I did try to see if I could get Weird Al to sign it or show up to really Weird-up the episode - but he's a bit harder to get in touch with than the good old Compuserve days.
sandmel27
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by sandmel27 »

barsmart wrote:His signature alone would make it a lot more valuable - but your name on it actually makes the signature kind of a wash on the whole signature thing - it personalizes the item more than it legitimizes it. Unless of course, you too are famous.
Yeah, now I'm a little regreting my asking for him to put my name there. X*
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anthontherun
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by anthontherun »

That's gotta be a relatively new phenomenon then--for years it wasn't unusual for it to go for about $75 but then in the mid-2000s the price seemed to drop significantly, which I guess is when a lot of us picked up our copies. I guess now that those cheaper copies are in the hands of fans who are unlikely to part with them, they're even more difficult to come across.

Congrats on the sale, that's awesome. I pretty much stopped searching for it once I got mine so I had no idea how much it's worth currently.
barsmart
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by barsmart »

sandmel27 wrote: Yeah, now I'm a little regreting my asking for him to put my name there. X*
Well you didn't decrease the value of the book, you just didn't increase it is all. And hey, for you it's 10x cooler knowing that Al had the book in his hand and if even for 3 seconds, he knew your name. I think that stuff is cool myself!
spmahn
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by spmahn »

The book is definitely not worth $425. I would say $300 at the most. The thing with Pawn Stars, as great a show as it is, is that it's fake much is the same was Professional Wrestling is "fake". I'm sure they had barsmart sign some sort of non-disclosure agreement barring him from giving too much away, but my understanding is that prices are negotiated up from, and when they buy items, it's not their own money that they are spending, it's The History Channels. That's why you see them pay absurdly high prices for items like this book, or for example a previous episode where they bought a Nintendo Virtual Boy off a guy for something like $150 (it's worth like $40, and that's in absolute pristine condition). Once the price is settled upon, they script the banter and the negotiating to make it entertaining for television.

Many of the items that come into the shop come out of the collections of the experts themselves. For example if you go on the website of Dana Linett, their American History expert, you'll find many of the same items that were supposedly bought on the TV show. Search on Google, there are other glaring examples that make this obvious, like a Coke Machine they brought to Rick Dale to be restored, and then when they showed it at the end of the episode, it was an entirely different model, not the original was that was brought to him. Now that's not to say the show is entirely fake, some of the customers and the items they are selling are legitimate, but at the end of the day it's just entertainment.

I stopped into the store when I was in Vegas back in June. Nice place, but the Pawn Shop deal is mostly just a front for their souvenir business. Sure, they do have a lot of the stuff rom the show available for sale on the show, but the asking prices are just absurdly high, even if you were to negotiate it down a bit.
barsmart
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by barsmart »

As a collector of other things non Al related I can assure you that "worth" is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Now you can go ahead and think what you want, and yes I did sign a contract, but what you have not done is actually looked around to see what other people are selling it for. The amazon price or that book was between $800 and $1000 when I went to Vegas in March. There were a few closed auctions on eBay at the time that showed $700 - $900. Right now the closed auctions look pretty low, but I'm better after the TV show, the price goes right back up.

What I can tell you about PS is that no the producers do not pay for the stuff the guys buy. First off, it's a rinky-dink production company doing a show for a basic-cable company that just recently stopped showing documentaries about Hitler 24/7.

The banter is in no way scripted. In fact it was the most hands-off things were during the entire taping. They actually told me, before I asked, that the haggle part was entirely up to me, and I could sell or walk away or whatever I wanted to do at any time. So nope sorry Spmahn, every word I said came from my own head, and there were no second takes or do-overs. Some stuff was edited out, but that is pretty much how it went.

Your thoughts on the Virtual Boy are also a bit off, you needed to check out the guys games. Personally I think it was a high price, but it wasn't absurd either. I myself own two VB's and have a complete collection of original releases (non home-brew) - see above about stuff I collect that is not Al.

Don't get me wrong, there is fake all over that show including your example of anything they do with Rick Dale, and there were other examples, including a woman who sold something on the show, then after they were done she asked for it back - they said OK and she sold it on eBay as the item that was on the show - it was the Apple computer, and if you remember they actually showed Chum setting it up in the back and playing with it as if they kept it.

I used to live in Vegas, and I was in that shop way before it was anything more than another shitty pawn shop in a shitty part of town. Rick shopped his Pawn Stars idea around for a good long time because he knew it would be good TV, and make more than a Pawn Shop. I'm positive they get paid a lot more from t-shirts than the History channel pays them, and you are right that shop is much smaller than it looks, a whole lot dirtier, and there isn't much to actually buy unless you like paying a lot for the few things that are cool.

So no I'm not defending the shop or the producers, but I will tell you that nothing i said was scripted, I was completely on my own for the haggle, and that I highly down a small production company is gonna front the money for these guys to buy stuff that they can go ahead and sell in their store (you saw some items yourself) or on eBay which you can look up and see stuff that was on the show.

Besides it really doesn't make much sense to overpay me for a book, if they offered me $30, when I seriously expected at least $600, it would have been far more entertaining, trust me. :)
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by Danhere »

I saw it when it aired, I was looking for that book around the time it came out but couldn't find it.
its cool that rick knew about al and how he got his start on dr.demneto,
425 did seem kind of out there depends if a true al collector would want it,
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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by Elvis »

Congratulations on getting on TV and selling the book. You did exceptionally well, especially for that book in the shape as it was in. I've been collecting Weird Al memorabilia for close to 20 years. Some of his memorabilia is really valuable in the correct setting. And I agree it's worth whatever people will pay, but a book in that shape usually goes for $60-$80. In mint condition, you could get $100-$125. If it was selling for $700-$900 somewhere that's an anomaly, but good for you for being able to capitalize on it.

It will be interesting to see what happens as more and more people see the show. Will there be a whole bunch of people who say "Holy smurf, I have that book!" and dig it out of their box of childhood memories in the attic, thus making more books available out there for the collectors and thus fetch a lower price? Or will there be more and more collectors who now must have the book and thus drive up prices?

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Re: The Authorized Al on Pawn Stars

Post by barsmart »

This one - http://cgi.ebay.com/Authorized-Al-Weird ... 35b44ae994" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is up to $305 with 5 hours left to buy it. It's in worse shape than mine, and I'm curious if it will go for the $400 buy it now price or not when the bidding gets nasty.
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