- [Voiceover] On this
episode of Pawn Stars, - [Rick] Ooh. - This is it. This is the first
electric guitar. You don't see these every often. It's actually extremely rare. - [Woman] So
I have this Victorian era stash box. - Okay. I have seen snuff boxes
worth thousands of dollars. Problem is - Oregon Trail
commemorative coin. A lot of people think it's the
prettiest coin we ever did. How much were you looking
to get out of them? - $5000 for the coins. ♪ rock music - In my shop, family comes first and money comes second, depending on who you ask. But the best part? You never know what's gonna
come through that door. This is Pawn Stars. ♪ heavy rock music How's it going? - Hey, what's up? I've got something for ya. - Looks like a small
person's guitar? - Nope, it's a 30's or
early 40's lap steel Gibson. - [Rick] Ooh,
where'd you get this? - Well, I can't really tell you. It'd be one of my trade secrets, but I found it at a pawn shop. - Okay. Here in town? - Maybe. Maybe. I'm not gonna tell you. - [Rick] Okay. - This guitar is very old, it's made out of metal, and it says Gibson
on the head stock, and I've never seen
one like that before. Found it at a local pawn shop. It was hanging on a wall
and it caught my eye so I thought I'd
take a chance on it. I'll take $10,000
for the guitar but $3,000 might be my lowest price. - [Rick] Cool. It's
a metal Gibson? - [Dickie] I think
it's aluminum. - It feels like aluminum, but I know it wasn't
during World War II because that was a war metal, they didn't make it then. I mean, if this is a Gibson, it's got to be 30's. This is really early
electric guitar stuff. - [Dickie] I'm sure this
was fairly new technology at the time, too. - It was. They were trying to
market this new idea of an electric guitar. And it sounded a little weird but if you played it well, it sounded pretty cool. - It works. I played it through
an amp and everything and it works. I mean, I can't
play lap steel but I tried it through an
amplifier and it made noise. - Okay. Electric guitars were
invented in the 1930's and people really started
going crazy for them. So instead of being
drowned out by the drums or the horns section, the electric guitar
could be up there with the rest of them. Are you sure it's a Gibson? Because I have
never seen a Gibson logo that looked like that, but then again, I've never seen a metal Gibson. - Neither have I. The first time I saw it I almost had a heart
attack when I saw it. I was like, "This has to be something." And it has a low serial
number on it, too. It's gotta be an old Gibson. It has to be real. - Well, how much
do you want for it? - Well, I've been doing
a lot of research online and from what I think
would be a fair price would be 10 grand. - Maybe if it's a Gibson. I don't know. I'm just sort of baffled by it. Give me a few minutes, I'm gonna call a
buddy down here. I'll have him take a look at it and if it's real, maybe we can do something. - Well, let's do it. All right. No problem. I'm okay with the
expert coming in. I can't wait to hear what
he has to say about it because I don't really
know much about this instrument or guitar at all. ♪ rock music - [Customer] How
are you doing today? - [Rick] Hey,
how's it going man? - Something you
might be interested in looking at here. - [Rick] That is an
awfully big padlock. - [Lock owner] Sure is. - [Rick] Where in the
world did you get this? - I actually bought
it at a yard sale. - Okay. This is the key you
had to carry around. The longer it was made
it harder to pick. - It had to be rough
carrying them around on a ring everyday, didn't it? - [Rick] Yeah, can
you imagine a janitor with like 50 of them? (laughter) - I want to sell the forged
padlock 'cause that's what I do. I buy and sell unusual items. I believe it's 4
or 500 years old because of the way the
metal's cracked on it. If I get $200 for it, I'm probably gonna take
the wife to a show. - This is cool. You see a lot of these
coming from India recently, the past 20 years. The Chinese made them,
the Romans made them. It's not a reproduction, this is actually old stuff. The thing is, they were still making
these 100 years ago. It's one of those
things they really didn't change the design a lot because it worked. This probably held a
big, giant gate closed. - [Lock owner] That's cool. - This whole part would
come out right here, and you would just put this
through big, iron handles on the back of a door. It was big and bulky
and it probably would've been next to
impossible to get through that gate. Does it work or is
it all rusted out? - The guy told me it would work but I didn't try to open it because of the age of
the metal and stuff. The edge of the key's
kinda rusted so I didn't try to force it in there. - Does it fit in there? - [Lock owner] Yeah. - [Rick] Oh, there we go. - Yeah, it's the right key. I think it's just rusty
from all the years. I could just clean
these edges up. - It will probably
open right up. - [Lock owner] Yeah. - If you lost the
key to your padlock, it wasn't like you
just called a locksmith and got another key. You had to call a blacksmith and they had to
forge these keys. Hopefully it was the
blacksmith who made the lock. Otherwise, you're not unlocking the lock. (laughs) So you want to sell it? - [Lock owner] Sure do. - [Rick] How much
do you want for it? - $200. - One thing that has been
consistent throughout the ages, there's always been thieves. There's always been padlocks and there's just
gazillions of them out there. I mean, this sounds
really cheap, but I'll give you 50 bucks. - How about $150? - I'll give you 60 bucks for it. There's nothing on it that
really makes it really neat and therefore it's going
to be difficult to sell. - $75? - [Rick] 70 bucks. - I guess you own it. - [Rick] Okay, cool man. Come up front and
we'll write it up. - I'm taking $70 today because it's a whole lot
easier to carry around than the padlock. ♪ rock music ♪ lively rock music - [Rick] Hey, how's it going? - [Customer] Doing good. - [Rick] What have we got here? - Got a set of Oregon
Trail commemorative half dollars here, and some memorabilia
from the old pioneer, Ezra Meeker. - This is cool. He was the guy who got them
to make the coin, right? - [Coin owner] He was. - It's a really
cool coin because a lot of people think
it's the prettiest coin we ever did. And through the 1920's we
made some incredible coins in this country, and now, there's just a bunch of
old dead guys on 'em. (laughter) - My deceased wife
was a descendant of the pioneer Ezra Meeker. I'm selling the
coins for $5,000, and the letter for $5,000. If I get the full price, I'll spend the money
as a downpayment on a retirement property. - Oregon Trail
commemorative coin. They really hit
the line on this. It's a beautiful coin. It's got an American
Indian on one side and the wagon in the back going across the United States. - [Will] Pretty
much as Meeker did. - [Rick] What are these up here? - The centerpiece of this
presentation is a letter from the old
pioneer, Ezra Meeker, to the members of the American
Numismatic Association, a collector organization, encouraging them to
buy this half dollar because they'd pay a dollar, and 50 cents profit would go to mark the Oregon Trail. He actually went out, at age 76, and took his wagon all the
way back across America to meet President
Teddy Roosevelt, shown here. - [Rick] That is really neat. - [Will] And he sold
these post cards to subsidize the trip. - [Rick] Okay. Hundreds of thousands
of people travelled the Oregon Trail in the 1800's. Land was free. If you had 40 acres, you could create a farm, you could make a good
living for your family, and it was a new life. So you want to sell this stuff? - [Will] Yes. - Okay. How much were you looking
to get out of them? - I'm looking to get
$5,000 for the coins and $5,000 for the ephemera. - Any reason you never
got these graded? - No, not particularly. - Here's my concern. I can grade them or
you can grade them, it really means
nothing unless you have NGC or some other grading
companies grade them. Do you mind if I
have someone come in and take a look at them? - Okay. That'd be fine. - [Rick] Let me call my buddy. He grades coins. Maybe he can help me spread
some light on this, all right? - Sounds good. - Give me a few minutes, I'm going to give him a call. - [Will] Thank you. I'm excited that an
expert's going to come in and evaluate this material because an extra
eye never hurts. - [Corey] Hey how are you doing? - [Woman] Hey. - [Corey] What do we have here? - So I have this Victorian era pewter stash box. - Okay. - And these are cameo matches that are Victorian
era also, I believe. - You mind if I
take a look at it? - Yeah, sure. - Snuff, in general, is just always been a
really weird thing to me. Can't imagine wanting
to sniff tobacco in my nose. - These items, I picked them up, I used to go antinqueing
all the time. I think the stash box, I would take $175 for. The matches? Probably 50 bucks. - Because it was more
of an affluent thing, especially Victorian era, I've seen 18 carat
gold snuff boxes made by company's like Tiffany's where they were worth
thousands of dollars. It became really popular
to collect snuff boxes and people were paying
ridiculous amounts of money for them at one point. And I know a lot of times, if you go to Europe, Turkey, places like that, they're still selling
them all over the streets. It's a big thing over there. - Right. - Your matches over here, these are definitely cool. Definitely kind of an
interesting little matchbox. So, what are you
looking to do with it? - [Jodi] I'd sell it. - Any idea of what you're
looking to get out of it? - So, I'm a virgin. I've never pawned
anything before. So, be gentle with me. I was thinking, maybe, $175. I don't know what they're worth. You've seen more of them. - I have. And I know why you would
assume it was Victorian era, the problem is that
they didn't have stainless steel springs. Didn't even exist back then. - Right. - Problem with the matches, Victorian era also
didn't have plastic. It's been made to look old. It's not that old. That being said, I couldn't really do
anything with them. - Well, maybe I'll
take up snuff again. (laughs) Thanks for your time. - Anyways, take care. - [Jodi] Thank you. I was surprised that
they are replicas so I was a little bummed out. A guy came in with
a lap steel guitar that he claims is a Gibson. I have never seen
anything like this so I'm calling in Jesse. Because if there's
anybody who'll know, it's him. - It says Gibson but
I have never seen a Gibson logo like that. It's deeply confusing. - This is cool. This is in good shape. This is early, early, early on
in the technology of pickups. This is 1936. Guitar, at this time, was coming a little bit
more into the forefront. They needed to
get it up and loud over a big band. - Gibson never made
anything this ugly. - [Jesse] Well, - You gotta give me that. It's ugly. - Yeah, yeah. - [Rick] I don't mean
to beat you up, man. - [Dickie] I don't
think it's ugly. I think it's actually
quite good-looking if you ask me. - This isn't the
norm for Gibson, to see something, kind of this plain Jane. But then when you
think about it, it was the 1930's. That was like a space-age
material, aluminum. That was as sleek as it got. - [Rick] The big thing
that threw me off is that doesn't look
like any Gibson logo I've seen before. - Yeah. It's called an E-150. This is actually a Gibson. Wow, really early serial number. Their first model. It's a piece of
history, for sure. This is Gibson's
first electric guitar. - [Rick] So, what's it worth? - It's actually extremely rare. Realistic retail price on
this I would probably say, would probably be about $3,800 to $4,000. That's realistic. - Thanks man. I appreciate it. - [Jesse] No
problem, no problem. - Cool man, thanks. - Cool. Good guitar, man. - Thanks dude. Appreciate it. - I hope Rick buys it. It's actually a
pretty cool guitar being it's one of the first ones to get pickup in it. It's a nice piece to
have in your collection. - I'm definitely shocked because when I first saw it, I thought it was some
sort of weird fake, but I guess it's
really a Gibson. So, what's your
best price on it? - $4,500. - Realistically, you
heard what he said. - [Dickie] Right. - Okay. I will give you
two grand for it. It's really cool, but it's still not an easy sell. It's lap steel and
it's sort of weird, so... - It's not a Les
Paul, I know that. $3,800? - 22? - 25, I'll walk out and
you'll never see me again. - All right. $2,500 man. - [Dickie] All right, cool. - I'll meet you
right over there. - All right. Thanks. I'm going to take the
$2,500 and invest it in my new truck
that I just bought. I'm gonna buy a
supercharger for it so I can be cool and fast. ♪ jaunty piano music - [Rick] Hey, how's it going? - Good. How are you doing? - Good. What can I help you with? - I've got some bone
dice here from the 1700's and they've got
King George III's Stamp Act stamp on them. - Let me see, we have a GR there. It's really cool. You rarely see these anymore. Most of them are in
collector's hands and never come out of them, or they're in museums because this really is what started
the Revolutionary War. It was a really
interesting time period. It would have been really
cool to live back then because it was an
intellectual age. There was a lot of arguments, all night long, in bars, where they would drink, play dice, and talk about politics. (laughter) - I've got these dice. They were in a
whole bunch of items that were in my garage. I could go down as low as $150 but I'm going to be
asking $300 for them and I think they're
worth every penny. - I absolutely love these
things because the Stamp Act was one of the precursors
to the Revolutionary War and that was because you had
to actually have a tax stamp for everything. And this was the insane thing: A pair of dice, the tax? That cost 10 schillings. So literally, the tax on this dice is
like a common person's wages for six weeks. - You're kidding? - The English parliament
enacted the Stamp Act of 1765 to help payoff all the
debts that were incurred during the French
and Indian Wars. The problem is if you
tax something to death, they'll figure out a
way around the system. Now, you see how these
are stamped right here, those are big and bold and 100%, and these right here
look faded and yucky? That's because those
are fake tax stamps and those are real. The funny thing is? These are worth just
around the same as those. (laughter) And the reason why
is they're so cool that they're fake. This was done, fair of taxes, and this is what the
American people did. They faked it. It's a funny thing. It's one of those rare
things where the fakes are worth as much as the reals. - [Alan] That's interesting. - [Rick] So, how much
you want for 'em? - Well, I'm asking $300 for 'em. - [Rick] Can I give
you $250 for 'em? I mean, it's right around
what they're worth. Because, like I said, they're rare but
they're not that rare because everyone played dice. - [Alan] How about $275? - You know what? They're really cool. I'll give you $275. - [Alan] Okay. - Meet you right up front here. - With the $275 I got today, I'll probably just
take my friend to a really nice dinner. ♪ rock music - A guy brought in
some 50 cent coins commemorating the Oregon Trail, and a letter signed
by Ezra Meeker. So I've called in
my buddy, Dave, who's a bigger coin nerd than even I am. Well, this is what
I called you about, the Ezra Meeker letter. It was dated 1928. I'm sure there's a collectible
thing there going on, but the big thing is
he has the complete set of the Oregon Trail. - [Dave] Okay. - But they're not graded. So, basically I called you
up to ask what you think. - Ezra Meeker the
quintessential pioneer. In the 1850's, he brought
his family by ox cart along the Oregon Trail
all the way to Oregon. This was an incredible journey. It took five or six months. A real trailblazer. - [Rick] That is neat. - Ezra Meeker met
with two presidents, got before congress to get
them to produce these coins, and he was extremely
active for two decades raising money for this cause. I've only seen a few
of these documents, like three or four. - So, what do you
think they're worth? - What's really
strange about it, it is probably 10
thousand times rarer than some of these coins, but it's principally
of interest to members of the association. The ones I've seen
sell in the past 10 to bring less than $400. Let's take a look at the coins. It's no surprise to you that
grade is extremely important in establishing value. - Not in the least bit. - What I'm looking for
is to see if there's any wear on the coins that
might reduce their value to collectors. I see nice, original luster. I don't see any
major impairments. A couple of them look like
they're a little cleaned but these are pretty nice. Some of them appear
to be very high grade. - [Rick] What do you
think they're worth? - It's a kind of thing I
think you could pay $2,000 for and there's perhaps some room
to actually make a profit, but, in the end, it's gonna come down to how
they all grade individually. - Okay. - Thank you for your input. - All right. Thank you. If Rick can buy these
coins at the right price, there are a lot of
collectors out there that want them, so I don't think
he'll have any trouble getting rid of them. - So this right here, I just think we're not
gonna make a deal on this, you know? This right here
on the other hand, I'l give you $2,000 for it. For the coins. - You know, the wholesale bid for
these things is an MS-63, which there's no argument
that they're at least that, that's $3,700 something. How about $3,700? - There's no money for
me to be made that way. It's gonna cost me 500 bucks
to get these things graded. I'll go 21. - My absolute rock
bottom's $3,300. - No. (laughs) - I'm sorry. I guess we can't
make a deal today. - If you change your mind, give me a call. - I appreciate it. - [Rick] Have a good one. - I'm going to keep the
letter for posterity because of the
emotional attachment. The coins, I will take to another
outlet or a coin show and sell them there. - [Rick] What are
you doing, Chum? - [Chumlee] Nothing. - [Rick] Sounds like usual. - [Chumlee] What
have you been up to? - I bought some of
the coolest dice you've ever seen today. - They somehow different
than regular dice? - They have the 1765
Tax Stamps on them. It was a really
interesting period, just the way people
thought back then. It just made me think
how cool it would be to live back then. - [Chumlee] What
do you want to do? Time travel or something? - Well, there's no such
thing as time traveling. But it would be cool to
be back in the 1760's debating the revolution. - Quit being lame, Rick. Do something cool. I'd go check out the dinosaurs, battle with a T-Rex. - [Rick] Battle a T-Rex? - [Corey] Or like the
1920's where everybody was just partying constantly. - There's a million
places I'd love to go. The Middle Ages, the
Renaissance, Elizabeth in
England. - Not one of which has plumbing. - [Rick] Do you guys
have something to do? - [Corey] This is it. - [Rick] You know
where I'd like to go? - [Chum] Umm - [Rick] Early 1980's. - [Corey] Why? - [Rick] Before I
decided to have kids. (laughs)
