'Pawn Stars' boss Rick Harrison gets excited about 16th century cannon — but there was one problem

The guest wanted $3,000 for it but had to go home empty-handed after the appraisal.

PUBLISHED SEP 24, 2025

Screenshots showing Rick Harrison and the guest on "Pawn Stars." (Cover Image Source: YouTube | Pawn Stars)

"Pawn Stars" guests may feel that the items they have are worth a fortune, but it's hard to convince Rick Harrison, who likes to be sure as he plays hardball. But when Harrison did get excited to see a cannon brought by a guest he had done business with before, his judgment turned out to be wrong. The same seller had previously sold Harrison an iconic Civil War pistol for $10,000, but this time, the guest’s item was not genuine.

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He said that he purchased the cannon at an auction and hoped to get $2,500 to $3,000. There were a lot of engravings on the cannon, and one of them was a date. The guest said that he could not read Roman numerals, so Harrison helped him out with that. The year engraved on the cannon was 1517, which was intriguing.

However, there were several elements about the item that raised doubts in Harrison's mind. First of all, cannons usually did not have dates engraved on them. Secondly, given the size of this one, it must have been a naval cannon. However, there were no signs of wear and tear. That would not have been the case if the cannon was actually mounted on a ship and used. As a result, the pawn shop owner decided to call in a trusted expert.

Screenshot showing the cannon. (Image credit: YouTube | Pawn Stars) — Screenshot showing the cannon. (Image source: YouTube | Pawn Stars)

In came the administrator of the Clark County Museum, Mark Hall-Patton, who is also known on the show as ‘the beard of knowledge.’ He looked at some of the other engravings on the cannon and concluded that it was Spanish. The Spanish did indeed use a lot of cannons on their naval vessels back in the day.

Hall-Patton then asked for something to measure the thickness of the backside of the cannon. If it were an operational one, that area would not be thin. Harrison pulled out an antique sword to use as a measurer. It worked just fine, and the expert came to the conclusion that this was much too thin to have been an operational cannon on a Spanish naval vessel.

Screenshot showing the sword and the cannon. (Image credit: YouTube | Pawn Stars) — Screenshot showing the sword and the cannon. (Image source: YouTube | Pawn Stars)

The expert then revealed that the images engraved onto the cannon’s body weren’t 16th-century images. He also noted that the trunions in cannons made during that time were welded into their bodies and not added afterwards. That was not the case with this one. All of this meant that the guest’s item was a reproduction.

Harrison obviously did not make a deal for the cannon, and the guest also did not let it play on his mind for long. He revealed that the best thing to do in a situation like this was to move on from it.