Pawn shop ponderings

Recently I came to the realization that for the first time in 10 years I need a cassette player. Not a walkman or anything, but an old school, rca output, standard cassette player. It took me a few days before I realized I already own one but it is in storage about 250 miles away. Not feeling it was worth a dedicated trip I figured I'd stop into a couple pawn shops today to pick one up.

As with anything I decided on my maximum price for what this item was worth to me before I even walked in to see what they had. My number of the day was $35. It seemed like a reasonable request to me. It's not like they even make cassettes anymore, do they?

The first pawn shop I went into I browsed and left without saying a word. My thoughts were stuck. All I could think was, "What kind of crack are these people smoking?" They were asking $80 for a dirty, low quality unit that had a craptacular tag on it stating the price and the words, "Studio quality." I don't mean to knock on any company's niche in life but I'm pretty sure Fisher never made any studio quality anything. The only studio quality cassette players that come to my mind are the Nakamichi Dragon (which I'd consider offering my left nut for) or one of the upscale Marantz or Tascam models. Fisher isn't even in the top 25 as far as I'm concerned, at least not as far as "studio quality" goes. The pawn shop owner seemed to have a differing opinion.

Pawn shop #2 brought a bevy of items with no price tags. Great, I was going to have to speak. Ok, I'm now down to $30 for the inconvenience. They had 2 double cassette decks of dubious quality stacked with a tuner on top. The shopkeep finally finished taking the payment on account or whatever was going on which didn't involve any transacting of goods as far as I could tell and I inquired about the cassette player. I wasn't specific about which one because frankly my dear, I didn't give a damn. I recall one was an Onkyo but I forget the other, maybe a Pioneer or something similar. Both decent for home usage and either would suit my needs.

"Oh, all of those [indicating the stack] come as a set."

"oh, alright."

Then shopkeep went back to dealing with the customers that wanted one of everything and wanted everything for a dollar (no lie, I swear.)

I was looking around for alternatives and alas there were none. Then it hit me. Why would you package two dual deck cassette recorders together, along with a tuner and no amp? Just for fun I asked how much the "set" was. Shopkeep went to moving bicycles to get a gander at the sticker price when it was found that they weren't a set. The top deck, I think it was the Onkyo, had a sticker of $100. She said $100 and it just came out, I didn't have any control.

I can buy a new one for that.

Well if you pay in cash you get a good discount.

(what am I going to do, put it on layaway and make payments? -- not said but thought)
How much of a discount?

$75, tax included.

No thanks, I'll just buy new.

I'd like to be able to talk to pawn shop shoppers but alas the internet is not necessarily the best medium to do so. Still, if you happen to know one, let them know that I said they are getting robbed. I found one online, brand new, with warranty, for $89.99.

Still, I think I'll just go get mine.