5 Places to Find Pawnable Items

Pawn shops offer quick cash for in-demand goods, and you can regularly make money pawning items if you know where to source sellable goods for less than these shops pay. Here are five places you'll likely find items that you can sell to a pawn shop for profit.

Your own house is the first place to look for pawnable items, for almost everyone has something that a pawn shop will pay cash for. Take a look around, and see if you have any of these especially desirable goods:

• Electronics
• Jewelry
• Firearms
• Power tools
• Video games

Be sure to check attics, basements, garages, and spare rooms where there are frequently items you no longer use.

While you shouldn’t go through a family member's house and pawn things they own without their permission, in some instances, helping a relative sell things at a pawn shop makes sense for both them and you.

If you have a relative who lives nearby and is moving, they might be willing to let you pawn certain belongings and split the proceeds. They certainly could pawn everything themselves, but some people may be uncomfortable with the process or too busy with other obligations. In these situations, your help can relieve the burden and give both of you some cash.

This can be an especially profitable approach if you have an elderly family member who's downsizing, such as a grandparent or parent who's moving. Elderly family members often have accumulated a lot of extra stuff, and some of it is occasionally old and valuable, so you can get a decent amount for it.

Picking up items to pawn at garage sales involves a little risk, for you must purchase the items without a guarantee of how much a pawn shop will pay for them. If you know what goods pawn shops in your area want, though, you can make a nice profit reselling wares from garage sales.

In general, you should stick to in-demand items when purchasing goods at garage sales. You might even want to study goods in these categories so you can better identify which ones are worth especially large amounts. If you can recognize a valuable collectible, pawning it will bring in a nice payday.

To make the most of garage sale reselling, carefully map out a route that maximizes the number of sales you'll make it to and minimizes your driving. Local classified ads will list sales, and you can plot out a route before you leave. This will both save you time and reduce your fuel costs.

Thrift stores don't always have the variety of items and potential that you'll find at garage sales, but they are open throughout the week. If you're able to find valuable items at a thrift store, they may be priced well below their fair-market value. A simple trip from there to the pawn shop will net you some cash should you stumble across such an item.

Generally speaking, thrift store shopping with the intention of pawning should be limited to non-clothing items. You may not find firearms at thrift stores, but they do have electronics, video games, tools, and other valuable goods.

If you have an auction house near you, you'll find goods at well-below market prices during their auctions. Not every auction will have items that pawn shops are interested in, but some will. Estate auctions of recently deceased persons will often have many valuables that you can acquire for low prices.