Pawn Stars s03e14 Episode Script
Double Trouble
On this episode of Pawn Stars I've got these bills from the 19th century.
This is worth anywhere from, like, $200 to $25,000.
I got a old geiger counter.
These were used to detect different types of radiation.
Everyone thought they were gonna strike it rich with uranium.
It was the new gold.
I hope there ain't no radiation leaking out of this thing.
[Laughs.]
I've got this old gaming set.
I know it belonged to an old gambler.
This is sweet.
I can imagine doc holliday having one of these.
If you look under here Oh, my God.
I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop.
I work here with my old man and my son, big hoss.
Everything in here has a story and a price.
One thing I've learned after 21 years, you never know what is gonna come through that door.
What do you got here? I've got some of these bills from the 19th century.
Do you anything about them? I really don't.
What you have here is education money.
To, like, fund education or No, it was just to educate people about beautiful works of art.
For the time, that was really risque to put bare breasts on bills.
Yeah, I can see.
Let me check that out there.
[Laughter.]
[Wolf whistle.]
I decided to come to the pawn shop today to sell some old currency.
I'm kind of scared, because I'm supposed to be getting married in a month, and I spent $7,500 on this.
If I don't get my money back, And that's morse right there, morse code.
And it's, like, one of the few bills where Martha Washington's on it.
In 1896, the U.
S.
government issued silver certificates that were educational notes.
The reason they did this is because if you lived in a rural community, you would never get to see art.
There were no nearby museums.
So they figured, "hey, let's put them on money.
" So where in the world did you get these? I was at an estate sale.
I got caught up in this auction, and, man, I just really hope I can make something out of it.
Do you mind telling me what you paid for them? I'm always getting into some type of trouble.
[Laughs.]
Yeah, happens all the time.
This money is just it's beautiful.
I mean, it's the prettiest paper money the United States ever made and arguably some of the prettiest paper money ever made in any country.
Does the artwork, you know, have anything to do with the value of it? Well, that's one of the reasons why these are so collectible.
But paper money is weird the way it's graded.
There's 70 different grades of a pie of paper money.
And the grade on these things is so important.
The difference between a 50 and a 55 is thousands of dollars on a bill like this.
Wow.
This is worth anywhere from, like, $200 to $25,000.
Really? Depending on the grade? Depending on the condition of it.
Wow.
And when we start talking money like that, I have to have someone look at it.
Let me call up a buddy of mine.
He knows everything about this stuff, so we can get a better understanding of the grade of them.
No problem.
Sounds good.
This guy is out of pocket 7,500 bucks, which makes him either a genius or an idiot.
So I'm gonna get my buddy Leonard in here to have a closer look, and hopefully he'll have some good news.
Hey, what do we got? I got some Spanish-American war training camp photos from 1898.
That is the commander of the 7th army corps, general Lee's nephew.
This guy definitely ate Southern food, huh? Oh, yeah, quite a bit, it looks like.
A lot of fried chicken.
I decided to come to the pawn shop today to sell my collection of Spanish-American war photos.
These photos were taken at a training camp in July of 1898.
I want to sell these photos just 'cause they've been sitting around the house for 20 years, and I don't look at them very often.
So where in the world did you get these? Picked them up at an estate sale about 20 years ago.
Do you have any idea where these were taken? Camp Cuba libre outside Jacksonville, Florida.
You've heard the story of the Spanish-American war, don't you, Rick? I bet I know more about the Spanish-American war than you do.
I doubt it.
Do you know how it more or less started? Cubans blowing up the battleshMaine? It was probably the Maine blew up.
The Spanish-American war started in 1898 after the U.
S.
battleship Maine blew up in havana harbor.
The thing is, it might not have been Spain's fault.
It might have been an accident.
Oops.
Then in the Philippines when the U.
S.
Navy and the Spanish Navy were coming right to each other, there was a telegraph in the middle of the night.
The only person available was the undersecretary of the U.
S.
Navy, which was Teddy Roosevelt.
Oh.
He didn't go to anybody else.
He just said, "attack.
" [Laughs.]
That's Teddy.
And what most people in this country don't know is, then we ended up getting the Philippines as a colony.
Right.
These photos give an incredible window into military life 100 years ago.
Collectors love them.
So what did you want to do with all these? I'm interested in selling them.
How much do you want for them? Well, you could probably sell these for 10 bucks apiece, and there's, what, 20, 25 of them there? So, what, $225? I'll give you 100 bucks for them.
It's a unique item.
It's a difficult seller.
All right.
Let's go do some paperwork.
All righty.
They're pretty hard negotiators, but I actually got $100 out of them today, and we're just gonna go have a good dinner on it.
Hey, what can I help you with? Hey, I've got this old gaming set that I bought about 20 years ago.
Not sure what it's worth, but I know it belonged to an old gambler by the name of j.
D.
Borthwick.
This is sweet.
This is this is incredible.
It's a little roulette wheel.
You're good at making it spin.
[Laughs.]
I decided to come here today to sell my old gambling set from the turn of the century made for j.
D.
Borthwick.
He's a famous gambler back in the day.
I bought this case for about 500 bucks 20 years ago, and now I'm expecting to make a butt load of money from it.
This is very interesting.
What can you tell me about it, son? Well, I know that it was probably made in the late 1800s, and they used these when they traveled in stagecoaches and boats and trains.
It's got everything: Cards, poker chips.
They've got poker dice, markers.
It's got the key still.
The only reason I knew it was j.
D.
Borthwick's set is because his name is on this.
And of course, "j.
D.
" Is on everything.
J.
D.
Borthwick, I know a little bit about him.
I know he was, like, in California and wrote a book on gambling.
Yeah, in the late 1800s, he was a notorious gambler.
I've been in business a long time, but I've never seen a set like this one.
This is something special.
Back in the day, people would set this up in a saloon.
They would have games and stuff.
And they'd split it with the proprietor of the establishment that they set up in.
Gambling was outlawed in a lot of places, so guys like this would come around, they'd have some games, and move on.
This set is awesome.
This guy was a professional gambler, and these were his tools.
It was a dangerous, dangerous profession, because if it was illegal to gamble in that town, they weren't exactly obligated to pay you if they lost.
[Laughs.]
That probably explains all of this, then.
Oh, my God.
That's incredible.
The grade's what's important as far as their value.
We got a center fold right here, three vertical folds.
Well, that's not very good.
Whew.
What you got here, son? My antique scooter.
Bet I could do some serious tricks on this thing.
It's not rated for 500 pounds.
You'd break it.
Chumlee, what in the hell are you doing? This is a professional set.
Yeah, if you were gonna travel around and just be a gambling man, it was a dangerous, dangerous profession.
That probably explains all of this, then.
Oh, my God.
There's quite a few ways to kill somebody in this box, son.
This is a really, really nice colt pocket pistol.
This is an early one too.
And it's in beautiful shape.
It's still got the engraving on the cylinder.
This damn thing is loaded.
Well, one way to find out.
[Cylinder clicking.]
Nope, not loaded.
Good.
[Laughs.]
You got a lot of things going here.
It's got ammunition, a little knife right here.
It's a complete killing kit.
[Laughs.]
I mean, this is what Maverick would have had on a riverboat.
Yeah.
Right.
[Laughter.]
Hands down, this is the coolest item ever to come into my shop.
This is not only a gambler's tool kit.
It's also a survival kit.
I can imagine doc holliday having one of these and always being ready for a game or trouble.
So what do you want to do with this? I'd like to sell it, but I just I don't know what it's worth.
Yeah, that's one of my problems right now too.
I mean, you have a That could be worth a fortune.
You got the revolver that should be worth at least 2,000 bucks.
I mean, just these little ivory pieces right here are worth a few hundred bucks apiece.
Wow, that's cool.
I mean, you have antique gaming equipment, but then again, you have antique gaming equipment owned by a famous gambler.
I mean, you have so much going on here.
I just I can't make you an offer, because I got to get someone down here to look at it.
Okay.
All right? Great.
I'll give you a call When I get someone down here.
Thank you.
There's no doubt that I want this.
But I got a few questions before I can make an offer.
So I'm gonna call my buddy Sean to take a closer look.
Hey, what do you got here? I got a old geiger counter.
This was for finding ore and oil.
Can this detect unobtainium? No.
[Laughter.]
I came to the pawn shop today to try to sell my geiger counter.
A geiger counter is for finding ore that, you know, is radioactive for making nuclear bombs and making power plants nowadays.
I hope there ain't no radiation leaking out of this thing, 'cause I've been hanging on to this thing for years.
[Laughs.]
Where in the world did you get this? I got it from my grandfather up in Oregon.
I don't know what year it was made in.
This is 1950s right here, I can guarantee you.
What these were basically used for is looking for uranium deposits in the 1950s, because when the nuclear plants started coming out in the United States, everyone thought they were gonna strike it rich with uranium.
It was the new gold.
Something I'd like to find out about: It says "oil.
" I know what ore is, but this is oil.
Is that oil that it was looking for? I believe some oil is radioactive, and it gives off a different type of radiation.
I imagine there's different types of tubes in the front of them to detect different types of radiation.
But I don't know if the vacuum tubes are good in it because of these batteries.
These are 90-volt batteries over here.
And that's not a 9-volt.
That's a 221/2 volt battery, and I don't think you can get them anymore.
So we'll never know if it works, 'cause I can't turn the damn thing on, and I don't have anything radioactive laying around here to test it on.
[Laughter.]
What makes this really cool: It's from the early days of the nuclear age.
But I'm afraid it's more nostalgic than functional.
Did you want to pawn it or sell it? I kind of want to sell it.
The problem is, this thing's just a novelty, because it's really not usable anymore.
I mean, you can probably go out and buy something right now that's 100 times more efficient, a lot more reliable.
And I would give you, like, a whopping 30 bucks for it.
Okay.
Yeah.
For that price, I'm thinking about maybe putting it on a shelf for a while.
Okay.
Thanks for bringing it in, man.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Since I couldn't make a deal today, I'm just gonna put it in my house, keep it as a conversation piece, and use it as a bookend.
Earlier, a guy brought in some 19th-century notes that he paid a lot of money for, so I'm bringing in my friend Leonard to see if he got a great deal or a complete bust.
Used to be a grader for the American numismatic association, and I've been buying and selling coins and paper money, currency, for over 45 years.
These are some important bank notes.
These are silver certificates from 1896.
This what we call the educational series.
So they all mean something.
They all mean something.
This one is the $1 note.
This is history educating youth.
Okay.
You know, young country.
History's gonna educate us.
On the back, George and Martha.
Yeah.
The $2 note, we've got science, electricity, and steam.
On the back, we got Robert fulton.
Right.
Samuel morse.
Right.
Okay.
And science is presenting electricity and steam to commerce and industry.
Okay.
In this one, we've got civil war heroes grant, Sheridan.
And this note shows electricity is the dominant force in the universe.
This is 1896 they figured that out.
And I thought this was just a bunch of naked women on a bill.
[Laughter.]
The grading of these notes is what's important as far as their value.
Were the notes used? How much were they used? Are they folded? Are they stained? Are they crisp? Are they nice and bright? Here's what we got here.
The $1 note, we got a center fold right here.
Okay.
Slight.
It's hard to see, but it's there.
This note's worth $700.
The $2 note's got a horizontal fold, three vertical folds.
This note's $2,500.
Make you feel a little better? That's a little better.
This note's got a very light center fold.
It's the most desirable note of the three.
This note is worth Um $7,500.
A little over $10,000 for the lot.
Thanks, Leonard.
Anytime.
Take care, buddy.
$7,500 turned out to be a decent gamble for this guy, because most notes I've seen like this are beat to hell.
They've been circulated.
But these are in amazing shape.
There's no question I want them.
So now that you know what they're worth, how much do you want for them? I'm thinking 10 grand.
Um I'm thinking 8 grand.
I just, you know, spent $7,500 on these, and the risk I, you know, took is just worth more to me than $500.
Um, I'll let you make 1,000 bucks off me and not a dime more.
So $8,500? $8,500 is it, period.
You got to think, man, profit on a complete gamble.
You know what? For $1,000 All right.
$8,500.
Okay.
Corey, you want to write him up? Yeah, let's go do some paperwork.
I'm so glad I kept my poker face.
When he started to grab them, I thought he was out the door.
What you got here, son? It's an old scooter.
A wee Wheeler.
Bet I could do some serious tricks on this thing.
Chumlee, it's not rated for 500 pounds.
You'd break it.
It's reinforced steel.
You'd still break it.
I decided to come down to the pawn shop today to sell my antique scooter.
I got the scooter at an estate sale.
I've never seen anything like it.
It just caught my eye, and I thought it would be a cool piece.
Brought it home, and the girlfriend didn't like it, so had to go.
I'm hoping to get 300 for it.
We'll see what happens.
This is called a kick scooter.
They were advertised as great muscle development for kids.
These were popular in the '30s, '40s, '50s, up to the early '60s.
And believe it or not, in the '30s, they cost about $3.
Push scooters have been around close to 100 years.
It's what kids got before they got a bicycle.
Hell, I had one.
It was fun.
I'll be honest with you.
It looks like it's in awful good shape.
What are you wanting to do, guy? You want to sell it, pawn it, or what? I'd like to sell it.
Now, much are you trying to get out of it? I thought maybe it was worth up in the maybe $400, $500 range.
Now, more than likely, it's a $300 piece retail.
Okay.
Guy, if you want it, you got a $100 bill.
Phew! I thought it was worth more, but I I'll move up to $150, and that's as far as I'm gonna go.
All right, I think you'll get $300 pretty easy, and $150 sounds great to me, so All right, you got a deal, guy.
All righty, thank you.
Chumlee, go do the paperwork.
Earlier today, a guy came in with an incredible gambler's kit I can't wait to find out more about.
So Sean, who's an expert in antique weapons, came over to take a look.
I own tortuga trading, and I specialize in antique arms and armor.
Well, it's obviously a gambling set, and that has "j.
D.
Borthwick" on it.
Okay, I do know the name.
I do know that he was associated with gambling.
As far as his complete background, I don't know.
During the gold rush, gambling was a huge, huge industry.
This particular kit was designed for the guy traveling all over the continental United States.
They would consist of multiple games, all sorts of parts and pieces that the gambler of the period would need.
I'm gonna tell you right off the bat, are just assemblages.
They may encompass period items to make it look like it was something put together back in the day.
You know, this is something that doc holliday or one of the major, major gamblers of that period would have had.
And I have to kind of really go through and determine, does everything conform to an age period when this guy was alive? So do you mind if I start taking things out of here and really kind of looking at it? What I'm looking for is anything that has maker marks or personal identification of the ownership.
Anybody of wealth and means, they'd have monograms.
This is one of those pieces.
This letter "b" could be connecting the dot to the last name.
And this is what you want to see with the period items.
I like this because it has, again, his monogrammed initials.
Then you also want to look at the materials involved.
Does it all conform to the period? And there's legitimate wear from taking things in and out.
That's what you want to see.
This is phenomenal.
But the fake ones always have some kind of weapon involved.
So I want to look at the stuff that's in here.
The maker is a known maker, Joseph Allen & sons.
And it's got legitimate age.
You know, it's got pitting on the blade.
So obviously, this, in travel, was subject to weather, lack of care at some point.
The gun, this is a colt.
And originally, the model but then it was converted in the 1870s to accept a shell casing.
And on its own right, a collector would love to have just this gun alone.
So everything that I've seen here conforms to the period that would make this as genuine as I've ever seen.
[Laughs.]
So I know the next question you're gonna ask is, "what do you think it's worth?" And that's a tough one.
You have to just put a value on what you see.
And I'm gonna advise you not to part it out, because once you do it, it's done.
You can never put it all back together again.
Just my gut's telling me, just with all of what I see, anywhere between, say, $7,000 to $10,000 as is.
Wow, that's great.
That is that's awesome.
Thanks for coming in, Sean.
Absolutely.
Anytime.
You're always the best.
Pleasure.
All right, nice meeting you.
Thank you.
Take care.
Okay, so what do you want to do with it? You know, after listening to that, I think I want to hold on to it and do some more research.
Yeah, well, I got $100 bills in the back, guy.
Shoot me a figure.
I don't think I can.
I'll give you $4,000 cash.
You know, that sounds really enticing, but I don't think I can do it.
You wouldn't take 5 grand? No.
I won't take 5 grand.
Guy, you're killing me right now.
Rick, talk to him.
I'll go 6 grand on it.
I don't even think I'd sell it for 10 right now.
Really? Yeah.
I really think I want to hold on to it.
I mean, if you ever change your mind, before you sell it to anybody, let me make an offer.
You'll be first on my list.
Promise.
Thanks a lot.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Damn, I really wanted this.
I went as high as I could, and I just hate seeing it walk out the door.
I really hope this guy comes back, 'cause that set was a beauty.
[Bell dinging.]
Come on, Rick.
I want a soda.
This is worth anywhere from, like, $200 to $25,000.
I got a old geiger counter.
These were used to detect different types of radiation.
Everyone thought they were gonna strike it rich with uranium.
It was the new gold.
I hope there ain't no radiation leaking out of this thing.
[Laughs.]
I've got this old gaming set.
I know it belonged to an old gambler.
This is sweet.
I can imagine doc holliday having one of these.
If you look under here Oh, my God.
I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop.
I work here with my old man and my son, big hoss.
Everything in here has a story and a price.
One thing I've learned after 21 years, you never know what is gonna come through that door.
What do you got here? I've got some of these bills from the 19th century.
Do you anything about them? I really don't.
What you have here is education money.
To, like, fund education or No, it was just to educate people about beautiful works of art.
For the time, that was really risque to put bare breasts on bills.
Yeah, I can see.
Let me check that out there.
[Laughter.]
[Wolf whistle.]
I decided to come to the pawn shop today to sell some old currency.
I'm kind of scared, because I'm supposed to be getting married in a month, and I spent $7,500 on this.
If I don't get my money back, And that's morse right there, morse code.
And it's, like, one of the few bills where Martha Washington's on it.
In 1896, the U.
S.
government issued silver certificates that were educational notes.
The reason they did this is because if you lived in a rural community, you would never get to see art.
There were no nearby museums.
So they figured, "hey, let's put them on money.
" So where in the world did you get these? I was at an estate sale.
I got caught up in this auction, and, man, I just really hope I can make something out of it.
Do you mind telling me what you paid for them? I'm always getting into some type of trouble.
[Laughs.]
Yeah, happens all the time.
This money is just it's beautiful.
I mean, it's the prettiest paper money the United States ever made and arguably some of the prettiest paper money ever made in any country.
Does the artwork, you know, have anything to do with the value of it? Well, that's one of the reasons why these are so collectible.
But paper money is weird the way it's graded.
There's 70 different grades of a pie of paper money.
And the grade on these things is so important.
The difference between a 50 and a 55 is thousands of dollars on a bill like this.
Wow.
This is worth anywhere from, like, $200 to $25,000.
Really? Depending on the grade? Depending on the condition of it.
Wow.
And when we start talking money like that, I have to have someone look at it.
Let me call up a buddy of mine.
He knows everything about this stuff, so we can get a better understanding of the grade of them.
No problem.
Sounds good.
This guy is out of pocket 7,500 bucks, which makes him either a genius or an idiot.
So I'm gonna get my buddy Leonard in here to have a closer look, and hopefully he'll have some good news.
Hey, what do we got? I got some Spanish-American war training camp photos from 1898.
That is the commander of the 7th army corps, general Lee's nephew.
This guy definitely ate Southern food, huh? Oh, yeah, quite a bit, it looks like.
A lot of fried chicken.
I decided to come to the pawn shop today to sell my collection of Spanish-American war photos.
These photos were taken at a training camp in July of 1898.
I want to sell these photos just 'cause they've been sitting around the house for 20 years, and I don't look at them very often.
So where in the world did you get these? Picked them up at an estate sale about 20 years ago.
Do you have any idea where these were taken? Camp Cuba libre outside Jacksonville, Florida.
You've heard the story of the Spanish-American war, don't you, Rick? I bet I know more about the Spanish-American war than you do.
I doubt it.
Do you know how it more or less started? Cubans blowing up the battleshMaine? It was probably the Maine blew up.
The Spanish-American war started in 1898 after the U.
S.
battleship Maine blew up in havana harbor.
The thing is, it might not have been Spain's fault.
It might have been an accident.
Oops.
Then in the Philippines when the U.
S.
Navy and the Spanish Navy were coming right to each other, there was a telegraph in the middle of the night.
The only person available was the undersecretary of the U.
S.
Navy, which was Teddy Roosevelt.
Oh.
He didn't go to anybody else.
He just said, "attack.
" [Laughs.]
That's Teddy.
And what most people in this country don't know is, then we ended up getting the Philippines as a colony.
Right.
These photos give an incredible window into military life 100 years ago.
Collectors love them.
So what did you want to do with all these? I'm interested in selling them.
How much do you want for them? Well, you could probably sell these for 10 bucks apiece, and there's, what, 20, 25 of them there? So, what, $225? I'll give you 100 bucks for them.
It's a unique item.
It's a difficult seller.
All right.
Let's go do some paperwork.
All righty.
They're pretty hard negotiators, but I actually got $100 out of them today, and we're just gonna go have a good dinner on it.
Hey, what can I help you with? Hey, I've got this old gaming set that I bought about 20 years ago.
Not sure what it's worth, but I know it belonged to an old gambler by the name of j.
D.
Borthwick.
This is sweet.
This is this is incredible.
It's a little roulette wheel.
You're good at making it spin.
[Laughs.]
I decided to come here today to sell my old gambling set from the turn of the century made for j.
D.
Borthwick.
He's a famous gambler back in the day.
I bought this case for about 500 bucks 20 years ago, and now I'm expecting to make a butt load of money from it.
This is very interesting.
What can you tell me about it, son? Well, I know that it was probably made in the late 1800s, and they used these when they traveled in stagecoaches and boats and trains.
It's got everything: Cards, poker chips.
They've got poker dice, markers.
It's got the key still.
The only reason I knew it was j.
D.
Borthwick's set is because his name is on this.
And of course, "j.
D.
" Is on everything.
J.
D.
Borthwick, I know a little bit about him.
I know he was, like, in California and wrote a book on gambling.
Yeah, in the late 1800s, he was a notorious gambler.
I've been in business a long time, but I've never seen a set like this one.
This is something special.
Back in the day, people would set this up in a saloon.
They would have games and stuff.
And they'd split it with the proprietor of the establishment that they set up in.
Gambling was outlawed in a lot of places, so guys like this would come around, they'd have some games, and move on.
This set is awesome.
This guy was a professional gambler, and these were his tools.
It was a dangerous, dangerous profession, because if it was illegal to gamble in that town, they weren't exactly obligated to pay you if they lost.
[Laughs.]
That probably explains all of this, then.
Oh, my God.
That's incredible.
The grade's what's important as far as their value.
We got a center fold right here, three vertical folds.
Well, that's not very good.
Whew.
What you got here, son? My antique scooter.
Bet I could do some serious tricks on this thing.
It's not rated for 500 pounds.
You'd break it.
Chumlee, what in the hell are you doing? This is a professional set.
Yeah, if you were gonna travel around and just be a gambling man, it was a dangerous, dangerous profession.
That probably explains all of this, then.
Oh, my God.
There's quite a few ways to kill somebody in this box, son.
This is a really, really nice colt pocket pistol.
This is an early one too.
And it's in beautiful shape.
It's still got the engraving on the cylinder.
This damn thing is loaded.
Well, one way to find out.
[Cylinder clicking.]
Nope, not loaded.
Good.
[Laughs.]
You got a lot of things going here.
It's got ammunition, a little knife right here.
It's a complete killing kit.
[Laughs.]
I mean, this is what Maverick would have had on a riverboat.
Yeah.
Right.
[Laughter.]
Hands down, this is the coolest item ever to come into my shop.
This is not only a gambler's tool kit.
It's also a survival kit.
I can imagine doc holliday having one of these and always being ready for a game or trouble.
So what do you want to do with this? I'd like to sell it, but I just I don't know what it's worth.
Yeah, that's one of my problems right now too.
I mean, you have a That could be worth a fortune.
You got the revolver that should be worth at least 2,000 bucks.
I mean, just these little ivory pieces right here are worth a few hundred bucks apiece.
Wow, that's cool.
I mean, you have antique gaming equipment, but then again, you have antique gaming equipment owned by a famous gambler.
I mean, you have so much going on here.
I just I can't make you an offer, because I got to get someone down here to look at it.
Okay.
All right? Great.
I'll give you a call When I get someone down here.
Thank you.
There's no doubt that I want this.
But I got a few questions before I can make an offer.
So I'm gonna call my buddy Sean to take a closer look.
Hey, what do you got here? I got a old geiger counter.
This was for finding ore and oil.
Can this detect unobtainium? No.
[Laughter.]
I came to the pawn shop today to try to sell my geiger counter.
A geiger counter is for finding ore that, you know, is radioactive for making nuclear bombs and making power plants nowadays.
I hope there ain't no radiation leaking out of this thing, 'cause I've been hanging on to this thing for years.
[Laughs.]
Where in the world did you get this? I got it from my grandfather up in Oregon.
I don't know what year it was made in.
This is 1950s right here, I can guarantee you.
What these were basically used for is looking for uranium deposits in the 1950s, because when the nuclear plants started coming out in the United States, everyone thought they were gonna strike it rich with uranium.
It was the new gold.
Something I'd like to find out about: It says "oil.
" I know what ore is, but this is oil.
Is that oil that it was looking for? I believe some oil is radioactive, and it gives off a different type of radiation.
I imagine there's different types of tubes in the front of them to detect different types of radiation.
But I don't know if the vacuum tubes are good in it because of these batteries.
These are 90-volt batteries over here.
And that's not a 9-volt.
That's a 221/2 volt battery, and I don't think you can get them anymore.
So we'll never know if it works, 'cause I can't turn the damn thing on, and I don't have anything radioactive laying around here to test it on.
[Laughter.]
What makes this really cool: It's from the early days of the nuclear age.
But I'm afraid it's more nostalgic than functional.
Did you want to pawn it or sell it? I kind of want to sell it.
The problem is, this thing's just a novelty, because it's really not usable anymore.
I mean, you can probably go out and buy something right now that's 100 times more efficient, a lot more reliable.
And I would give you, like, a whopping 30 bucks for it.
Okay.
Yeah.
For that price, I'm thinking about maybe putting it on a shelf for a while.
Okay.
Thanks for bringing it in, man.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Since I couldn't make a deal today, I'm just gonna put it in my house, keep it as a conversation piece, and use it as a bookend.
Earlier, a guy brought in some 19th-century notes that he paid a lot of money for, so I'm bringing in my friend Leonard to see if he got a great deal or a complete bust.
Used to be a grader for the American numismatic association, and I've been buying and selling coins and paper money, currency, for over 45 years.
These are some important bank notes.
These are silver certificates from 1896.
This what we call the educational series.
So they all mean something.
They all mean something.
This one is the $1 note.
This is history educating youth.
Okay.
You know, young country.
History's gonna educate us.
On the back, George and Martha.
Yeah.
The $2 note, we've got science, electricity, and steam.
On the back, we got Robert fulton.
Right.
Samuel morse.
Right.
Okay.
And science is presenting electricity and steam to commerce and industry.
Okay.
In this one, we've got civil war heroes grant, Sheridan.
And this note shows electricity is the dominant force in the universe.
This is 1896 they figured that out.
And I thought this was just a bunch of naked women on a bill.
[Laughter.]
The grading of these notes is what's important as far as their value.
Were the notes used? How much were they used? Are they folded? Are they stained? Are they crisp? Are they nice and bright? Here's what we got here.
The $1 note, we got a center fold right here.
Okay.
Slight.
It's hard to see, but it's there.
This note's worth $700.
The $2 note's got a horizontal fold, three vertical folds.
This note's $2,500.
Make you feel a little better? That's a little better.
This note's got a very light center fold.
It's the most desirable note of the three.
This note is worth Um $7,500.
A little over $10,000 for the lot.
Thanks, Leonard.
Anytime.
Take care, buddy.
$7,500 turned out to be a decent gamble for this guy, because most notes I've seen like this are beat to hell.
They've been circulated.
But these are in amazing shape.
There's no question I want them.
So now that you know what they're worth, how much do you want for them? I'm thinking 10 grand.
Um I'm thinking 8 grand.
I just, you know, spent $7,500 on these, and the risk I, you know, took is just worth more to me than $500.
Um, I'll let you make 1,000 bucks off me and not a dime more.
So $8,500? $8,500 is it, period.
You got to think, man, profit on a complete gamble.
You know what? For $1,000 All right.
$8,500.
Okay.
Corey, you want to write him up? Yeah, let's go do some paperwork.
I'm so glad I kept my poker face.
When he started to grab them, I thought he was out the door.
What you got here, son? It's an old scooter.
A wee Wheeler.
Bet I could do some serious tricks on this thing.
Chumlee, it's not rated for 500 pounds.
You'd break it.
It's reinforced steel.
You'd still break it.
I decided to come down to the pawn shop today to sell my antique scooter.
I got the scooter at an estate sale.
I've never seen anything like it.
It just caught my eye, and I thought it would be a cool piece.
Brought it home, and the girlfriend didn't like it, so had to go.
I'm hoping to get 300 for it.
We'll see what happens.
This is called a kick scooter.
They were advertised as great muscle development for kids.
These were popular in the '30s, '40s, '50s, up to the early '60s.
And believe it or not, in the '30s, they cost about $3.
Push scooters have been around close to 100 years.
It's what kids got before they got a bicycle.
Hell, I had one.
It was fun.
I'll be honest with you.
It looks like it's in awful good shape.
What are you wanting to do, guy? You want to sell it, pawn it, or what? I'd like to sell it.
Now, much are you trying to get out of it? I thought maybe it was worth up in the maybe $400, $500 range.
Now, more than likely, it's a $300 piece retail.
Okay.
Guy, if you want it, you got a $100 bill.
Phew! I thought it was worth more, but I I'll move up to $150, and that's as far as I'm gonna go.
All right, I think you'll get $300 pretty easy, and $150 sounds great to me, so All right, you got a deal, guy.
All righty, thank you.
Chumlee, go do the paperwork.
Earlier today, a guy came in with an incredible gambler's kit I can't wait to find out more about.
So Sean, who's an expert in antique weapons, came over to take a look.
I own tortuga trading, and I specialize in antique arms and armor.
Well, it's obviously a gambling set, and that has "j.
D.
Borthwick" on it.
Okay, I do know the name.
I do know that he was associated with gambling.
As far as his complete background, I don't know.
During the gold rush, gambling was a huge, huge industry.
This particular kit was designed for the guy traveling all over the continental United States.
They would consist of multiple games, all sorts of parts and pieces that the gambler of the period would need.
I'm gonna tell you right off the bat, are just assemblages.
They may encompass period items to make it look like it was something put together back in the day.
You know, this is something that doc holliday or one of the major, major gamblers of that period would have had.
And I have to kind of really go through and determine, does everything conform to an age period when this guy was alive? So do you mind if I start taking things out of here and really kind of looking at it? What I'm looking for is anything that has maker marks or personal identification of the ownership.
Anybody of wealth and means, they'd have monograms.
This is one of those pieces.
This letter "b" could be connecting the dot to the last name.
And this is what you want to see with the period items.
I like this because it has, again, his monogrammed initials.
Then you also want to look at the materials involved.
Does it all conform to the period? And there's legitimate wear from taking things in and out.
That's what you want to see.
This is phenomenal.
But the fake ones always have some kind of weapon involved.
So I want to look at the stuff that's in here.
The maker is a known maker, Joseph Allen & sons.
And it's got legitimate age.
You know, it's got pitting on the blade.
So obviously, this, in travel, was subject to weather, lack of care at some point.
The gun, this is a colt.
And originally, the model but then it was converted in the 1870s to accept a shell casing.
And on its own right, a collector would love to have just this gun alone.
So everything that I've seen here conforms to the period that would make this as genuine as I've ever seen.
[Laughs.]
So I know the next question you're gonna ask is, "what do you think it's worth?" And that's a tough one.
You have to just put a value on what you see.
And I'm gonna advise you not to part it out, because once you do it, it's done.
You can never put it all back together again.
Just my gut's telling me, just with all of what I see, anywhere between, say, $7,000 to $10,000 as is.
Wow, that's great.
That is that's awesome.
Thanks for coming in, Sean.
Absolutely.
Anytime.
You're always the best.
Pleasure.
All right, nice meeting you.
Thank you.
Take care.
Okay, so what do you want to do with it? You know, after listening to that, I think I want to hold on to it and do some more research.
Yeah, well, I got $100 bills in the back, guy.
Shoot me a figure.
I don't think I can.
I'll give you $4,000 cash.
You know, that sounds really enticing, but I don't think I can do it.
You wouldn't take 5 grand? No.
I won't take 5 grand.
Guy, you're killing me right now.
Rick, talk to him.
I'll go 6 grand on it.
I don't even think I'd sell it for 10 right now.
Really? Yeah.
I really think I want to hold on to it.
I mean, if you ever change your mind, before you sell it to anybody, let me make an offer.
You'll be first on my list.
Promise.
Thanks a lot.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Damn, I really wanted this.
I went as high as I could, and I just hate seeing it walk out the door.
I really hope this guy comes back, 'cause that set was a beauty.
[Bell dinging.]
Come on, Rick.
I want a soda.