Rick Harrison - License to Pawn: Deals, Steals, and My Life at the Gold & Silver

TO MY FATHER, THE OLD MAN

Contents

T his is my story, my familys story, and the story of the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. Its also the story of Las Vegas, or at least a small slice of it, and the story of a world of characters unlike any youve ever encountered. One thing about my life: Its never boring.

After twenty-two years in the family-run pawn business, all of them with my dad and most of them with my son, Ive seen just about everything. But the minute I think Ive seen everything, that nothing left in this world possesses the capacity to surprise me, Im confronted with something else that makes me shake my head in utter disbelief. Its seriously the greatest life I could imagine living.

Ive dealt with every kind of human imaginablebillionaires and pimps, celebrities and crack whores, prim little old ladies and two-toothed meth addicts. Ive had a conversation with Bill Clinton in a room with just ten other people, and Ive battled to the death with some two-bit local politicians who think theyre running the entire world.

Ive learned a lot for being a tenth-grade dropout. Along the way, Ive had a hell of a lot of fun. Ive seen exultation and despair. Ive been sweet-talked by beautiful women and cursed by tweakers who walk up to our infamous night window trying to convince me to give them $1,000 for their PlayStation games.

This is a big, crazy world, and most of the time I feel like Im at the epicenter. Endlessly fascinating. Its impossible to be bored, impossible to be disengaged.

When I was a kid growing up in San Diego, I always loved to sit along the boardwalk in Mission Beach and just watch the people. I could amuse myself for hours that way. Thats another beautiful thing about my job: Now I get to people-watch for a living.

This is the greatest business in the world. Every day is different, every person is different. Ive always been a spastic, talky guy, and even before Pawn Stars came along and turned our shop into a kaleidoscope of people and cameras, I still would sit around and talk to people all day long. I can argue any side of any issue. I can talk politics forever, and Ill drive you crazy because I can argue against Republicans and Democrats equally. Ive always got a better idea.

I dont judge anybody. Theres room for everybody. My background gives me a unique perspective on people; as you will soon learn, my childhood was one long experiment in proving that smart people can do stupid things. I can relate to just about everybody, including people who are down on their luck and trying to scrape enough money together to get back into the casino to make that next big score. (They always think its coming, trust me.)

Ill always remember a grumpy old lady who wandered through the shop several years ago wearing a judgmental look on her face. This grizzled old gal apparently expected something different from Gold & Silver Pawn, and she expressed her disgust by asking me, You call this place World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. Tell me: Why is this place World Famous ?

I laughed a little, shrugged, and said, Why? Because we put it on the sign, thats why.

I cant claim that Old Man and I had a premonition when we decided to include those two words on the sign. It was probably more wishful thinking than anything else, but twenty-two years later we can lay a claim to being world famous . We have Pawn Stars to thank for that. Our reality show is now shown on History in Australia and Canada, so if that little old lady ever comes back, Ill have a better answer for her.

If my life is a bookand I guess what youre reading proves it isthen Las Vegas is a major character in the saga. The place, the people, the politicsall of it weaves together to create a wild tapestry that is often hard to believe.

This is my journey. It hasnt always been easy, but its always been fun. Enjoy the ride. Along the way, youll hear from my son, Corey, known better as Big Hoss because of his size and big personality. And youll hear from my dad, known better as Old Man because hes an old man. (True story: He got the nickname when he was in his thirties, because hes always been an old soul.) Youll also hear from Austin Russell, the worlds most unlikely television star, known as Chumlee because he looks like a cartoon walrus.

If you dont know how a pawn shop worksand many people in reputable society dontheres a primer:

The majority of our business, probably 60 percent, consists of pawns. If someone sells an item, its straightforward. They get their money, always in cash, and I get the item. If an item is pawned, its a loan. We charge a five-dollar device fee and 10 percent interest per month.

On Pawn Stars, the vast majority of the customers you see are selling, not pawning. Theres a simple reason for that: Most people who are in the position where they have to pawn something dont want to be shown on television. Theres a stigma attached to it, which is why its legally considered a private transaction between the pawnbroker and the customer.

When you pawn an item, you have three options: (1) You can pay the interest each monthsay, fifty bucks on a $500 loanand Ill keep your stuff indefinitely; (2) you can pick your stuff up by paying the loan and the accrued interest; or (3) you can walk away and never come back, which means you dont owe me a dime, but your item becomes mine after 120 days and can legally be sold in the shop.

Every transaction, pawn or sale, is downloaded to both the Las Vegas Metro Police Department and Homeland Security. (Thats a little-known aspect of the Patriot Act.) By law, any item I purchase or take on pawn must sit in the shop for a thirty-day waiting period while it is cleared by the police as not stolen.

Theres nothing predictable about life in the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. Old Man might be grumpy and Chumlee might do something stupid, but the swirl of crazy people and crazy stuff is unending. As I say on the open to the show, You never know whats going to come through that door. All you have to do is spend a little time inside to see how true that statement is.

Im Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop.

I was eight years old, lying on my bed, when the world turned upside down. All of a sudden, no warning, without me moving, the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling became the floor. My head buzzed and crackled like a thousand power lines, and the world tilted on its axis. Slowly at first, then faster, until I was no longer aware of any of it.

I awoke later. I dont know how much later. I didnt know what had happened. My tongue felt like hamburger and my body felt as if it had been beaten with hammers. My legs were stiff and painful, my back hurt and my head held the residual buzz of whatever Category 5 electrical storm had struck it.

My parents room was downstairs. My only thought was to get there; they would know how to handle this. My legs were cramped and constricted. I tasted blood from my shredded tongue. I was scared and confused and tired and just so goddamned scared. I got to my parents room and knew from the looks on their faces that everything would be different from this point forward.

My first grand mal epileptic seizure, and the countless ones that followed, would define my childhood and much of my life. They struck violently and without warning. They struck mostly at night, and thankfully never at school. They struck with such severe force that I accepted it as a given that I would not live into adulthood.

Surely, at some point, one of these vengeful, raging attacks would cross the line. It would hit with all its wild, paralyzing fury, and I would simply never regain consciousness. From the time the seizures became a regular part of my life, I resigned myself to the idea that they would eventually kill me.