'Pawn Stars' guest brings the car in which Tupac Shakur was shot in — but Rick found it too expensive
Among the most coveted items that have appeared on "Pawn Stars," memorabilia related to personalities from the music industry stands out. Tupac Shakur made a career for himself with his on-the-face and controversial hip-hop tracks back in the 1990s. Many believed that he was on course to become perhaps the greatest hip-hop artist in the world before his sudden and tragic death.
Tupac was brutally murdered when he was returning from a Mike Tyson fight in a black BMW 750iL. To this day, it is considered to be one of the most significant and infamous moments in hip-hop and music history. So when Chum Lee of “Pawn Stars” saw that there was a chance he and Rick Harrison could buy that same car in an earlier episode, it was understandable why he was so hyped up about it.
Rick, however, had little to no idea about what the incident that took place in the car was. He knew who Tupac was, but wasn’t a fan of the genre of music he used to make. Therefore, he needed Chum Lee to explain the significance of the automobile. At one point, he even seemed disappointed that he knew less about such a historically significant item than his friend and co-worker. “This is seriously the only time Chum has taken me to school,” he said.
He still wasn’t sure of how much the car was worth and what it might sell for at an auction, so he needed to call in an expert. The expert came in and said that Tupac was the Jimi Hendrix of hip-hop, which a lot of people would agree with. “I keep on feeling older and older today,” Harrison said upon hearing it. He then got to see some pictures of the car the weekend after the murder took place. The vehicle had obviously been repaired and seemed brand-new, so Harrison needed to see where the bullet marks were originally. Even the expert was surprised that the car was still around in such good condition after what happened to it in 1996. By now, it was well established that this car was significant. However, its past troubled Rick when it came to deciding its value.
“This was a car a celebrity got shot in and died a few days later,” he said. The expert then revealed that the car’s driveability, which means that driving it around won’t devalue it. A value still had to be ascertained, and the expert said that it could fetch $500,000 to a million dollars at the right auction house.
The owner of the vehicle, however, asked for $1.5 million. Rick might have attempted to negotiate, but all that went out the window when the owner said that he had already turned down an offer of $900,000 for it. This was a lot more than what the pawn shop owner was willing to pay, and no deal was struck.
