Updated for grammar and style, with a few minor additions and deletions.
Over the past few months, my wife and I have started watching some “reality” shows on auctions and pawn shops. Our favorite is “Auction Hunters” (wiki) with Allen Haff and “Ton” Jones, two guys with complementary knowledge of valuables who try to turn a profit on storage unit auctions. The episodes highlight their successes, though they make it clear that they have failures as well. Those don’t make for good TV.
Another good storage auction show is “Storage Wars” (wiki) which features a cast of regulars—six people total: two individuals, a married couple, and a father-son duo. At the end of each episode, each team’s profits are tallied and ranked, scoring it as a competition.
There’s also “Storage Hunters” which we don’t find as interesting as the other two, either in content or personality.
Before an auction, the owner opens the door to the unit and prospective bidders get a few seconds to look inside, without touching or crossing the threshold. It’s sad how highly valuable things are lost by storage unit customers who fail to pay the rent. But that’s part of their contract and the storage owners build these placed to make a profit, not provide free space out of the kindness of their hearts. Sometimes valuable objects are in plain sight. More enticingly, the bidders catch a glimpse of just a leg, handle, or case, giving a hint of the nature of the object under the clutter. Otherwise, boxes and bags completely hide the treasures, so bidders have to use other clues, or just outright gamble. The visible items often give clues to the type of person who rented the space, whether it’s indicators of their occupation or hobby, or simply the care with which the items are stored. Also, bidders consider the town in which the storage units are situated as a way to guess the type of things that residents might want to store—whether it’s a beach town, retirement community, or a popular spot for hunting and outdoor recreation.
Before and during the bidding, the shows highlight the psychological tussle between rival bidders. On “Auction Hunters”, Allen and Ton work out a maximum bid and a strategy to dissuade competitors from driving up the cost. On “Storage Wars” the primary buyers know each other and are constantly playing head games. Sometimes it’s about driving up the price to keep the other guy from having enough cash to bid on other units. Sometimes it’s about quickly driving up the price and winning the auction to intimidate the amateurs. But mostly it’s just trash talking. It can be very funny. When the auctioneer says, “going once, going twice”, and Dave Hester shouts a deep, long “yeeeeeeeep” at the last moment, he gets to watch the rival bidders’ faces, the anguish and frustration of having a winning bid taken away just after they get their hopes up.
Digging through units to discover valuable items adds suspense. Producers inevitably insert a commercial break right after a surprised gasp. Once the good stuff is sorted out and trucked away, the buyers try to flip them as soon as possible, to reduce the time and space devoted to a given product. Whether it’s a collector, an antique store, potential buyers are interviewed to assess the value, after which the stars of the show try to get the highest price. Again, it’s another psychological exercise, to gauge the response of a potential buyer. The whole process from auction to resale is an interesting combination of raw capitalism and gambling.
Before we saw those TV shows, my wife had already been a longtime viewer of the PBS show “Antiques Roadshow” (wiki), which provides viewers with the chance to see expert appraisals of items. There’s a bit of suspense, but none of the drama of bidding or haggling.
My wife loves going to estate sale auctions, garage sales, flea markets, and thrift stores. She has a good eye for hidden values and is an accomplished haggler. She’s managed to turn a profit on just about everything she bought with the intent to flip. I’ve gone to a few auctions with her. For me, it’s entertaining and interesting to watch the process, but she’s the expert. I love watching her at work.
Similar to the auction shows are the ones about pawn shops. My son thinks “Pawn Stars” is the best, because it features interesting items without so much drama. We haven’t had a chance to watch that one, but we have enjoyed the show “Hardcore Pawn” (wiki) which chronicles interesting incidents at a large Detroit pawn shop, run by the Gold family: Les and his children Seth and Ashley. It’s fun to watch the Golds and their employees haggle, though the TV show is more about relationships and the drama of patrons who seemingly don’t understand the concepts of mutual, consensual exchanges, private property, or manners. The security staff escort those who misbehave out the door, with all the expected tantrums. However, it’s my understanding that TV producers must obtain a signed release to broadcast a person’s images, so I question the authenticity of many events. Also, as with other “reality” shows, the main characters often engage in squabbles which seem a bit contrived or exaggerated.
At a weblog called “The Zeitgeisty Report” an author named Damien wrote a scathing review of “Hardcore Pawn” in which he accused the show’s producers of “blatantly” reinforcing “offensive” stereotypes. Unfortunately, Damien’s arguments reinforce the misguided notions that negotiating for a low price to maximize one’s profit is the act of a “[s]neaky, eveil [sic] Shakespearean Shylock creature” or an “[e]vil Jew [who] screws over less intelligent minority.” I wonder, if the pawnshop owners were Mexican and the customers Anglo, would Damien still see the haggling as “sneaky” and “dishonest”? Would he view the middle man as “evil”? Or is it just that the Gold family are Jewish? (I’ve never seen an episode in which their religion or ethnic background are mentioned, but I’ll assume Damien is accurate in guessing that they are Jewish because their name is Gold.) I attempted to post a comment on that article, but it’s been “awaiting moderation” for weeks. Here it is (permalink):
Some of the angry encounters are staged. I noticed a microphone transmitter clipped onto the belt in back of a “customer” who was being thrown out of the store. I’m betting that some are real, but to liven up the show, they stage reenactments or maybe even outright fiction. If you were thrown out, would you sign a release to have your image shown on TV? Put people in front of a camera and they usually act differently than they would otherwise.
And, the sibling rivalry subplot is overwrought, probably a combination of selective editing and directors encouraging expressive outbursts on the part of the actors (family members).
But if you see the pawn brokers as evil and dishonest, you may, like many of the troublemakers on the show, be unfamiliar with the concepts of private property, consensual exchanges, and profit margins in consideration of overhead. About 90% of the angry displays are because the person stupidly feels entitled to money that the brokers aren’t willing to pay, or think that they are entitled to enter another person’s private property and say rude or threatening things with no consequence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that such ignorance and stupidity take place in Detroit, which has been devastated by economic collapse which was an inevitable consequence of decades of union and government corruption, welfare “entitlements”, and the like—though for political reasons, those who know this won’t admit it, while the rest are unenlightened to the basics of free market economics.
You give the example of the gyn table being bought then resold for much more, but the fact is that the original sellers don’t have to pay for a giant store, employees, taxes, utilities, advertisement, etc. to find a buyer. They just went to the place Les built, got their money, and were on their way, happy with the result. On the other side, the “George Jefferson” interpretation is completely yours. I say if the guy is happy with the deal he got, then he benefited from the deal. It’s not up to you to decide that the table wasn’t worth $200 to him, because it’s not your $200, not your table, and not your happiness. It’s his.
As for your suggestions of racial or ethic stereotypes being pushed by the producers, I don’t agree. The show is about drama, so the vast majority of customers waiting in line aren’t acting up and are only seen as background to the narrative. Several of the crazy customers are white. The employees seem to be quite varied in race, ethnicity, personality types, etc.. Your “missing chromosome” snark is ignorant (hint: look up aneuploidy, you probably would have said “extra chromosomes” if you knew better, but then it’s jolly fun to exploit people with Down’s Syndrome by making them the punchline of a joke, I suppose).
Watch “Hardcore Pawn” and decide for yourself.
Better yet, watch “Auction Hunters” or “Storage Wars” for better content.
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