Palace Jewelry & Loan Company Inc — Local services in Reno

I went in this place a while back just to look around and I ended up speaking to the owner and he was very friendly and I mentioned to him that I had a gorgeous Zodiac Astrographic in the car that I was thinking of just giving to a charity shop because I thought it would be a decent thing to do and plus I was in the processes of moving out of my place blah blah blah. And so he rather enthusiastically encouraged me to walk the three blocks to my car with the idea that he'd offer me a fair price.

What a joke!

He took the $1200 watch and its gorgeous presentation box over to one of his "experts" and for several minutes they talked and looked on the computer. He came back over and told me they'd be willing to give me $25 for it!

I said "no." (I'd rather give it to a street person than those sickening vultures.)

The soulless looking lady behind the barred cash-register cage, having seen the hope in my countenance when her fellow freaks stood aways off at the computer to figure-out what line of reasoning they were going to lay on me in order to weasel my watch from me at such an insanely low price, offered as I was about to head out the door, "$25 is better than nothing." I didn't bother wasting my breath to point out to her that one-cent would have been better than nothing, too.

Up until that experience, I hadn't been in a pawn shop for a good decade. After that experience, I recalled why I've never liked pawn shops. Needless to say I went straight home and took a long shower.

My prayer is that craigslist and other such places such as ebay will eventually make these seedy, rip-off pawn shops a thing of the past. And it can't happen soon enough as far as...

Hey there Shyanne, my name is Arron. I'm assuming based on your description, that I am the "tall skinny guy w/tattoos" that you were referring to in your post... I do apologize if for whatever reason I came off as rude or disinterested at any point during your visit here, we are here to help and we try to do our best with every item brough to us. You must also realize that the laptop you brought in is by no means the first laptop we've ever seen on my counter. We typically have a good idea what WE can get HERE in OUR store on that item, maybe Super Pawn has a better customer base for laptops, maybe they don't mind only breaking-even on their inventory, being that they have CashAmerica's corporate bank account to pay the bills if that store doesn't make enough on it's own. Laptops are just something that, unfortunately we don't have a whole lot of luck with on the re-sale end of things, so what we pay for them needs to reflect that. Also, there is an UNBELIEVABLE difference between the price that Amazon can sell a used/refurbished laptop for, and what a jewelry store in downtown Reno, NV can get for them... Believe me when I say that I am not, by any means, attempting to defend my demeanor or choice of words that I may have used, for which I sincerely apologize. I am only defending our stance on how/why we conduct business the way we do. I have many happy customers, and repeat loan clients of well over 40 years, I only hope you can give us a shot in the future to make you a happy...

Walked in, went straight over to the rings and the jeweler was too busy laughing and yuckin it up on the phone to even ACKNOWLEDGE my being there. No one greeted us and some old man moving bicycles into the shop kept staring daggers at my girlfriend and I. Everything in there seemed to be over priced, as for the jewelry I wouldn't know since I never got any help like I said. There were no excuses for our lack of service as we went in looking to buy something and there were not enough patrons in the store to demand the attention of all the employees at counters. Completely unprofessional place. I would NEVER pawn or buy there.

As for the response review the manager wrote. That was actually the reason I chose to disregard the poor reviews. He had a few valid points and being the reasonable lady I am I decided that there are 2 sides to every story. I now know that these past bad reviews for Palace Jewelry & Loan were anything BUT fabricated or embellished upon.

Please beware. I went to Pawn World right next door and was treated very nicely, greeted upon entering the store and helped during my entire shopping experience(it wasn't necessary, but a lovely bonus), given tips on a good time to come back and check their jewelry stock for new things, and didn't feel pressured to purchase anything. They also had a pretty decent selection of ALL kinds of rings not just gaudy over the top crap that they can make a big...