SCAMMERS and ILLEGAL ITEMS on Pawn Stars

What's up guys, welcome back to the channel Well, we got a Wells Fargo and some antique ball and chain Okay, you do have a ball of chain and a few old uh handcuffs this one right here It comes from falson prison from around the late 1800s 1900s. I know, uh, california did their hangings there, right? Here's my concerns when they forged chains back in the 1800s. It was just hot welding together, you know Get it hot beat it together. That's why I have a problem with these chains They're electrically welded and my other big concern never in the history of any prison Did they ever have their name put on the balls? Okay, so what are you trying to say here are times when pawn stars came across scammers and illegal items Jump, what's up? Check this out. Is that the donald duck bike rick? You never told me you were getting this thing fixed up All right, so i'll be in a 2600 and I should get 5 000 of it, right? Well, I got some bad news. It's not a true donald. It's a clone. It's a fake donald duck bike Well, if you look underneath you'll find a serial number and it says shelby co but also the first two numbers are 53 and that Was 1953 shelby only made this bike in 1949 Claude monet painting rick is a bit skeptical when ken walks into a shop with a huge painting that he claims to be an original monet Ken tells rick that he got the painting as security for a loan and admits that he does not know much about art Rick inspects the provenance papers that ken has what do we have here? Well, it's a claude monet painting. Is this the weird chance that your name is claude monet or is this actually the claude? No, this is the actual guy. Okay, where in the hell did you get this a collateral for a loan? Okay, the guy just defaulted on the loan or no, actually he took the money went in the hospital and died Okay, so that I guess in itself is a default Do you have a date or anything else like that when it was done when it was painted? Is there a title to it? It was just I don't okay. Was this guy really well off. He was he was a doctor All right. I know a little bit about monet. What I have here is some documentation Okay, some provenance for you that you can look at. All right So, uh, may 1st 1965 our findings as follows The painting is solidly constructed casual canvas a typical claude monet from his early period then we jump forward to 1997 the painting was actually displayed at the las vegas museum of fine arts This was the insurance policy for that painting and it was insured at that time at 2.1 million dollars People have walked in my shop and I have bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise off of but a real monet That might be the most expensive item yet Despite the paperwork rick is not convinced about the authenticity of the painting rick's expert immediately wonders How an original monet would find its way to las vegas pawn shop yet prestigious museums cannot get them, you know I this is legit. I think we can both make money off it. Okay, that's good. All right. I'll be right back Thanks. Oh my gosh. This is this is the monet. This is it. All right Monet is one of the biggies I mean when you think of fine art masters monet's right up there near the top of the heap He established probably the most important artistic movement of the last 200 years I mean, there's prestigious museums that can't get hold of a monet So you don't expect to see one in the las vegas pawn shop. Wow, really? The expert inspects the painting and finds that though it looks like a monet some aspects of the technique don't quite match The brush strokes are there. It's it's very thin Usually you'll get some sort of impasto a little bit more texture He usually had some texture in his pieces and this again There's very little of that rick's expert calls his expert to offer a second opinion on the red flags He has noticed, you know, I don't want to dismiss it because again you're talking about a piece of if it's authentic This could be a five million dollar piece So red flags means it's not real or i'd like to get a second opinion because again when you start talking about these types Of upper echelon pieces the more opinions you can get the better Okay, and just because there's a few red flags that I see he may not see it that way. That's fine with me Okay, is that okay? Rick? Sure. Yeah Okay, I will the second expert is much more experienced at upper echelon art when he inspects the piece and finds that it cannot Be 150 years old because the paint is not cracked at all He declares that he is 200 sure that the painting is not a monet if this is a real money it will be a very important money because the size and also because of the subject of Because he is a painter from the outdoors from the landscapes money is known for that quality The first thing if it's a money it should be 150 years old. So is it real? It's in the style of money, but it's not absolutely not by the end of Claude Monet Really how sure are you of this 200 sure because there's absolutely not one crack in the paint itself Ken leaves devastated that his friends scammed him. Not real. Usually when it's too good to be true. It generally is. Well, that's disappointing Well, thanks for bringing it in. It was fun 1949 shelby donald duck bike when a customer brings rick a shelby donald duck bike Rick can't help but crack a disney joke pat wants to sell the children's bike So he buys the adult version of the same bike What do you have there? Oh, yeah, my boss is gonna love this. I'll tell you what Let's get it out of the parking lot. My boss should be out here any minute. This is absolutely great Chum narrates the history of donald duck and rick chimes in from time to time. This is really cool Donald duck is quite the character He came out in 1934 when he first made his appearance in disney's animated and from there his career took off by 1965 he was in over a hundred movies or cartoons. I think in 1949 He actually surpassed mickey as the most popular character So the reason he surpassed mickey as being the most popular character is because mickey mouse had become such an icon They basically got the memo mickey mouse can't do anything the least bit controversial Where donald on the other hand could be his grumpy donald duck and that's what people fell in love with him Rick moves on to business and inspects the bike despite rick pointing out several quality issues with the bike pat wants to sell it for $3,000 rick offers him 1,500 and pat drives a tough bargain Um, the tank needs to be restored because the car and donald duck's face I don't know if that's actually cracked or that's paint. I like to think of that more as a quack. Okay Pretty good. It has a button over here. What does this do? Do you know I believe it's for a horn? It says it's a quack horn. Okay, that's pretty cool. Um, how much do you want for it? I'd like to get 3 000 for it A few years ago one of these sold at a big auction for 4 000 bucks This one's an amazing shape, but there are some issues with it. I'll give you 1 500 No, I don't think I can do that. What's the best you can do? I do 2 800 2 000 2 000 is a fair price Can you do 2 400 22 50? I'm gonna walk at that price. I really can't go anymore Okay, i'll take that eventually they agree on 2250 after having bob uhaas restore the bike for 350 Rick couldn't wait to check it out But I know I can get a lot more if I get just a little bit of restoration done So i'm bringing it over to bob's right now to see what he can do to it to get me top dollar Quack quack, dude. Hey, this is what I called you about. Very cool. Shelby bike donald duck It's 95 there, but they bring really good money when they're perfect First I would give donald some plastic surgery and uh, weld up his face repaint him. Uh, then i'd work on that tank All right, cool, so I can pick it up tomorrow. Oh, yeah Maybe today Unfortunately, bob tells rick that the bike is fake and only worth about a thousand dollars Rick cannot believe that the counterfeit trade has gone to donald duck bikes as well Jump, what's up? Check this out. Is that the donald duck bike rick? You never told me you were getting this thing fixed up All right, so i'll be in at 2600 and I should get 5 000 of it, right? Well, I got some bad news It's not a true donald. It's a clone. It's a fake donald duck bike Well, if you look underneath you'll find a serial number and it says shelby co but also the first two numbers are 53 and that was 1953 shelby only made this bike in 1949. Now i'd be lucky to get a thousand bucks I'll be honest with you put the name tribute bike on it and you'll get more than a thousand Wells fargo strongbox rick attends to a customer who's brought him a prison ball and chain set alongside a wells fargo strongbox Rick is intrigued by the items and inspects them carefully This one right here it comes from falson prison from around the late 1800s 1900s I know uh, california did their hangings there, right? He tells the customer that the ball and chain set are forgeries the customer acts shocked and quickly changes the topic By asking rick to consider the wells fargo strongbox. Here's my concerns women of any prison Did they ever have their name put on the balls? Okay. So what are you trying to say? It's fake. Yeah Yeah But the box might be real the handles. I mean, that's classic american cast iron probably from chicago And my big problem is we have a box full of fake stuff gives me real doubt about the box This stuff was not inside the box. I actually just bought it all and I put it in the box All right So that makes a lot more sense this makes me feel a lot better about the box without calling an expert rick decides the strong Box is authentic and begins negotiations You always see a wells fargo scary all the stuff out the client wants $1,200 for the box rick talks him all the way down to 450 I just don't see me getting that kind of I see me getting 600 bucks. Maybe I'd like to at least get 500 I'll meet you in the middle of 450 All right. All right For a little filthy. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you very much When mark patten comes to check out the 19th century strongbox, he delivers the bad news that rick has been duped Rick first things first. Have you already bought this? That sounds bad. I've already bought it. I don't have good news for you This is a complete fantasy piece It's a complete fake the old man immediately turns on rick claiming that he knew the box was fake He only played along so that he could have a reason to holler at rick devious, isn't it? What so you let me spend the money instead? Shackle of tire chum is quick to wave off a biblical coin Luckily rick overhears him sending away the client and steps in to make the deal ryan The seller shows rick the precious shackle of tire a coin that was in circulation in the days of jesus christ I have a coin. I think you might be interested in what do you got here? It's a shackle of tire like from the bible Um, yeah, we only buy american coins man. So you'll have to take it somewhere else. Hold on. Hold on Since when did we only start buying american coins? I thought that was our rule. Um, no I mean basically what you have is a really cool coin that is collectible because it's you know from jerusalem It's from the time of christ supposedly judas received 30 pieces of silver and it was probably a coin like this So there is a possibility this could be one of those coins. Is that correct? No As rick inspects the coin closer he notices that it has been cleaned He informs ryan that a clean coin loses a good fraction of its value Everything about this is right. It's perfect The problem is someone cleaned it any coin collector considers a clean coin a damaged coin if this wasn't clean I'd offer you five thousand dollars for it the ryan asked for two thousand dollars for the coin Rick is only prepared to pay a thousand after some tough negotiating the pair close a deal at sixteen hundred dollars Wow, now the big question is how much you want for it two thousand dollars. What do you think chum? It's old Will you take 14? I can't do 1400. I just can't really I mean it's got that it's got the historical value It's also been cleaned. How about 1750 1500? I could do 16. Yeah 1600 deal Okay When chum goes bragging that he and rick just purchased one of the 30 pieces of silver paid to judas for the betrayal of Jesus cory and the old man informed them that there isn't any way to determine its history Despite the hating rick is determined to make a tidy profit on the coin So your dad thinks he just bought the coin that judas was paid to betray jesus with no How are you ever gonna prove that what did you buy rick? It wasn't the coin that judas was paid. It's the same type of coin from the same time period It's not the coin chum. I got a good deal on it I paid 1600 bucks for it and as soon as I can get it authenticated, hopefully get 2500 three grand somewhere around there Unfortunately rick's intentions are spoiled by some bad news the shop security guy Andy informed rick that the police had flagged down the coin as stolen. Hey guys, I got some potentially bad news Andy's our head of security. So when he says he has bad news, it can be really bad What's up an out-of-town detective has called las vegas police the shekel that you recently brought in There's a chance it might be stolen. They want to put it on hold Luckily for rick the police returned the coin because the original owner had been compensated by insurance My security guy andy found out that the shekel I bought was stolen now. He's got some sort of update I hate to think what could the problem be now? So what's up the coin we've been working with the police on turns out that the guy who originally owned it got Compensated for his loss. It's ours. They released it this morning So it's not stolen luckily for us the coin was insured and the insurance company paid for the loss So that makes the coin free and clear db cooper hijacking money Mike wants to sell rick a piece of a $20 bill that was part of the stash Db cooper stole during the hijacking rick goes on and on about the mystery of db cooper Mike tells rick that the piece was discovered alongside a stash of stolen cash It even has the initials of the fbi agent who logged it into evidence Check this out. You have uh, this is one of the holy grails Do you know a lot about db cooper? I do. Do you think he's still alive? I do not. Okay I don't think he's alive either. It was 1971. There was a plane flight He gave the stewardess a note saying he had a bomb he demanded a parachute and two hundred thousand dollars in cash They landed gave him what he wanted took back off and he jumped out exactly This is one of the craziest unsolved mysteries ever This guy is a legend and despite a serious investigation by the fbi that's still going on He's never been identified or located rick is not willing to pay the two thousand dollar asking price and instead offers a thousand dollars He's concerned that the rest of the illegal stash might be discovered by law enforcement and thus lower the value of the fragment It's all legit. How much do you want? I was thinking that 1800 was going to be my lowest. How about 1500 bucks? It is a really rare thing. I really gotta have 1700 The old man offers mike sixteen hundred dollars and insists that they will not pay a dollar more He has no choice but to accept the lowball offer 1600 Tortoise shell guitar rick is wary when a customer brings him a beautiful tortoise shell guitar John the seller wants to sell it to raise money for his daughter's tuition though. Rick is not a guitar expert He knows that most countries ban the instrument to spare the animals from extinction. Hey, how can I help you? I have this guitar here and I wasn't sure whether or not I could legally sell it Yeah, i've never had anyone ask me if it's legal to sell their guitar and that would explain why it's a tortoise shell Okay Where in the world did you get this? I bought it at a pawn shop and for some reason I was drawn to it I've done a little bit of research on it tortoise shell was real popular back in the day for making combs Sunglasses guitar picks all sorts of stuff. It looks cool and it's incredibly durable, but some tortoises became endangered So in the early 70s the trade in tortoise shell was banned Rick is worried that if the guitar was made after the 70s It is likely illegal rick decides to play it safe and calls jesse before entering into negotiations But my problem here if it's early 70s or older to determine whether it's legal for me to buy this thing I have a friend with a store right down the street. So he might know the laws on it. That sounds good Okay, let me give him a call All right Jesse tells rick that most tortoise shell guitars were brought back into the us after world war ii and the korean war He tells rick that the guitar is legal to own but illegal to buy or sell So do you know anything about these things? They were kind of big after world war ii Korean war guys would bring it back from the pacific and I know they go for a premium They go for a lot of money. So do you have any idea how these sound? You know I know that bluegrass guys prefer a real tortoise shell pick because of the sound The tone of the pick looks like it'd be a weird scale length The neck looks really short but not having strings on it. I kind of have no idea It could sound amazing though The guitar could be worth a lot of money jesse advises rick not to risk selling the illegal item John leaves the store disappointed but committed to obeying the law Basically, is it legal on any idea what it's worth? This is kind of a tough one because I don't think you'd get in any trouble owning it because there's a lot of this stuff Floating around but I don't know about selling I would think one that was made really well You could probably get some money for but uh, this is kind of a tough one Honestly, dude, I wouldn't touch this with a 10-foot pole There's people that have done 10 months of in-house arrest and paid like 20 grand in fines for selling this stuff illegally That's what I would be concerned with, you know, all right Thanks, man. No problem. Catch you guys later. Hey, thanks forged samurai sword Corey gleefully tells on chum lee to rick and the old man chum tries to defend his poor decision of spending $4,000 on three unverified swords, but no one is having it You just bought those. Yes, I did didn't like and get him down here to take a look at these This is a catwalk rick. Trust me. It's a cake walk Catwalk because cats walk so easy and when they fall they land on their feet just like me If you fall you're not gonna land on your feet if i'm walking like a cat I will rick calls mike a samurai sword expert to determine if chum has made the shop another loss Don't you shed some light on these for uh old ricky over here as mike inspects the swords He wonders a lot why chum did not consult him before making the purchase after chum is done explaining that the customer Rather have left with the swords than to wait for the expert. Mike shed some more information on the swords So, can you tell me about these things? I'm gonna take the handle off so we can see if it's signed or not This one is very tight. So it obviously hasn't been off for a long long time And it has a signature so generally when you're looking at swords to buy You always want to check the tang to see if it's signed to see if anybody famous made the sword this title With this type of file marks belongs to a swordsmith known as naganobu Good news so far. It is good news because he's actually well known. He's very famous. Okay, so the blade is in good condition There's no flaws. It has one small nick So this is actually a very decent sword The first sword is an authentic samurai blade its tanto is in such good shape that only one nick can be spotted on the blade The second sword is also authentic mike then delivers the blow that the third sword is a forgery designed to mimic a famous sword maker So are you lucky and this one too? It's full signature here and the sword is got some good age to it. May I please? What a beauty That's the traditional way of removing the handle from the hilt Another signature this sword is signed. So shuji akihiro. He's one of the most famous makers of japanese sword history Unfortunately, the signature appears to be a forgery chumlee does not let the news get him down because the three swords are valued at $13,000 up to three times what he paid for them not bad for a scam So it's just that it's such a famous name given to lords and the lords that they actually made Forgeries on other blades that were available from the same time period. So this blade is actually old It is from like the early 1400s. What are they worth? Well as a package you're looking at about 13 000 for all three I'm, not gonna congratulate you. It doesn't take skill to win in a slot machine if you ever need my help Thanks, man, I appreciate it. You're welcome