'Pawn Stars' guest brings a rare 18th century Buddha statue and Rick Harrison gave it his best offer
Rick Harrison may be a shrewd negotiator who can be very stingy while buying artifacts on "Pawn Stars," but he does loosen his purse strings for exceptional items. One such item on “Pawn Stars” was a magnificent bronze Buddha statue, for which the seller sought $10,000. Harrison did not believe it to be worth that much, but when the expert came in and revealed its true value, there was nothing he could do but pay up.
The expert Phineas Kastle revealed that the statue was from the 1700s and that it was made in Tibet. The country has been pillaged by foreign invaders over the years, and finding high-quality items from that time is getting harder each day. Kastle confirmed the authenticity of the statue and even said that he had seen items like that at auction in England, which were sold for $10,000 to $15,000.
This was exactly what the guest wanted. Harrison wasn’t expecting such a high price, and the expression on his face told the entire story. “It looked old and everything to me, but I thought your price was absolutely nuts,” he said. Despite being proven wrong, he was never going to pay exactly what the guest asked for. He started with $6,000 but had to settle at $7,500. The guest didn’t look too pleased about it, but there were no hard feelings.
“I’m selling at $7,500 because this was a gift. It is a complete profit for me. I’m taking this $7,500 and I’m going shopping,” he said after the deal was done. “His housewarming gift is worth $10,000? He got some friends,” one fan commented on YouTube. “His friend probably saw this episode and regretted giving him that gift,” another viewer added.
This is not the first time that Harrison has been forced to pay more than he intended after an appraisal by an expert. In a different episode of the show, a guest brought in an ancient Colima pottery duck and hoped to get $4,000 for it. The guest claimed that weird things had been happening around her house ever since she got the duck and wanted to get rid of it.
Rick, however, was never going to pay that much money for a pottery duck without getting it checked by an expert. It is believed that these ducks were made between 200 BC and 300 AD, and were buried with the deceased so that they could act as a source of food for them in the afterlife. The only question that remained was about its authenticity and an expert confirmed it.
He then said that its value would be $8,000 in the market, which was twice as much as what the guest was asking for. Normally, Rick always pays less than what is asked of him, but in this case, he matched the guest’s price. He had no choice in the matter, and the guest seemed happy to get exactly what she had asked for.
