First, let’s start with an update on the TV I won in the Monday Night Football raffle. We offered it to a couple of workers in the casinos and on Craigslist, but when that wasn’t working, we traced some of the markings on the box and figured out that the casino had purchased it at an area Walmart. So I drove it over there in the car and explained everything. They checked it out and after some huddling and hand wringing they approved a full refund and issued me a Walmart gift card in the amount of $214.
So, what did we do last Monday night – yep, Monday Night Football at the Lucky 777 Brewpub. It was a game of interest to us as fans of the Detroit Lions – the Green Bay Packers versus the Chicago Bears – we wanted them both to lose. Now we are getting this routine down a bit. They always ask a few trivia questions from the Sunday games. Before we head over Gary studied up on the big performances of Sunday. Early on, the announcer asks, “how many touchdown passes did Ben Roethlisberger throw?”. Gary leaps to his feet and shouts out “four” and becomes the proud owner of a shot glass and a shot. They ask for volunteers to play beer pong. I stand and wave my hand, am selected, head over and promptly bounce a ping pong ball into a fish bowl – Dos Equis t-shirt with “stay thirsty, my friends” scripted on it. No, we didn’t win another TV at the end of the game, but they also have a major prize drawing at halftime. Again, the drum is spun. A ticket was pulled. The announcer reads Gary …….. Sure enough Gary won the halftime drawing and receives a football autographed by Hall-of- Fame running back, Marshall Faulk. There are likely two hundred tickets or more in this drum each week and we won two drawings between us.
So where does Pawn Stars enter this blogpost. Well, we thought about taking the football to them to see if they would want to put us on TV trying to sell it to them. But that seemed so improbable that we decided to take it to the store of the guy they always call in when they are appraising an item of sports memorabilia – Jeremy Brown. He runs a shop in the downtown called Ultimate Sports Cards and Memorabilia. Jeremy wasn’t there, but we offered it up to his associate running the store at that time. He declined to make an offer as it didn’t come with a certificate of authenticity. But he tells us in all likelihood it is real and that we should be able to sell it for $75 to $150 without authentication and maybe twice that much if we have it professionally authenticated. This Monday Night Football thing really worked for us.
And in the same complex we see a store by the name of Toy Shack which has “Pawn Stars Toy Expert” written on the door. It is owned and operated by Johnny Jimenez the guy who they call in to appraise toys. Ah, but we didn’t have any toys to offer up short of some of Alley cat’s toys and she wasn’t about to part with any of them.
One day were were reading about events in the downtown area and we read that there would be a poker tournament to benefit the Clark County Museum. The administrator of this museum is Mark Hall-Patton who is another of the authenticators on the Pawn Stars show. It says there will be a red carpet event before the tournament so we headed over for a look. We captured this shot of Mr. Mark resplendent in top hat. He is probably the biggest celebrity museum administrator in the country.
Gary has offered to be the expert appraiser of motor homes for the Pawn Stars, but the phone hasn’t exactly been ringing off the wall.
All this Pawn Stars stuff really is big business for Las Vegas and vice versa. They even announce on the city busses where to get off for a pawn visit.
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