Guilty Pleasures: Pawn Stars

Do you think Antiques Roadshow is for your gran and that one kid at school who wore glasses, had patches on his elbows and understood the Gold Standard?
Me too.
But, what about if, instead of stuffy toffs and crap old things, we had a down-to-earth yank (with a passing resemblance to a Mitchell Brother) and oddball, but cool, collectables?
Now that is a totally different proposition.
In Pawn Stars we have a Las Vegas pawn shop owner Rick who could also pass for Vic from The Shield.
Rick runs the shop with his old man who has seen everything in the pawn trade.
Also working there is Rick’s son Big Hoss and his friend Chumlee whose role in this is to play the fool, which he seems to love.
Episodes are formulaic where random items (guns, a Harley, replica bat mobile or Kiss pinball machine) come into the shop and either gets valued straight away or for the particularly oddball items (table with inbuilt gun, New Deal bank notes) an expert comes in to value the item.
So far, so Antiques Roadshow variant.
But then Rick offers his own money to buy the item. Which is where the fun really begins as Rick and the item’s owner haggle over the price.
Sod old blokes in stuffy tweed suggesting how much to insure the piece for or how much something could get at a hypothetical auction.
Witness the auction as it happens.
Offer and counter offer. The cut away shot to earlier where the seller tells the camera what the lowest possible price they would take is, which is followed by Rick getting them to part with it for less.
My personal favourite is when they get a gambling item in, such as a roulette wheel.
Rick will do something awesome like say he’ll meet a price if they spin and it lands on the colour the seller selects.
But if it lands on the other colour, Rick only pays the price he has named. Real money in reality TV makes for real drama.
The format may be formulaic, but the show is well made and extremely compelling viewing.
A sparkling gem amongst the dross of reality TV which you can find showing in the UK on ITV 4.