What: Pawning Silver
Having lived in New York for some time now, my father decided it was time for me to do him a favor and sell the silver his father left to him when he passed away. Seeming like a simple task I obliged and scouted out the diamond district for the best possible place to sell his metal.
Review after review popped up on my Google search. Most of the reviews were awful claiming that they had been ripped off. This was no surprise, the business of pawn shops and jewelry stores is very clear: make the most money possible and screw the person selling to you.
I finally decided on three locations that had the best of the bad reviews and dragged my coworker Jehdy with me during lunch. Not sure what I was up against I knew I might need backup.
Upon arriving to the first store we were lead to a back room where the price of silver was looked up online for the trading price that day and then my treasure was weighed. The old Jewish man then told me the best he could do was 4 dollars per ounce below the selling price, he was screwing me essentially.
The next office procured another Jewish man who went through the same process. They must have felt comfortable trying to screw me out of hundreds of dollars assuming that I had no knowledge or backbone, unbeknownst to them many of my family members are Jewish and I learned to haggle with the best of them.
This time the man offered me a reasonable price for the silver and I accepted. As I signed away the rights to the silver he asked if I wanted cash or a check. Having still not opened a New York bank account (way overdue) I asked for cash to hold me over for a while.
As the man counted the cash he gave me an extra $100. Unsure if he miscounted I took the cash and walked out with Jehdy. We both felt slightly violated by the back room experience and had to shake off the dirty feeling we were sure was associated with being a call girl (not that we saw anything wrong with this lifestyle.) As I counted my extra hundred dollars I smiled to myself thinking that I was the first person to screw the diamond district (a title I will not let go of soon.)
When I've retold this story to my friends I assure them I robbed the man and took more than he offered...there is only one witness to deny this, but luckily her price was only $50.
2) Uncomfortable feeling like a hooker
