'Pawn Stars' boss Rick Harrison becomes a fanboy and spends big for rare 'Game of Thrones' copy
Rick Harrison is a shrewd negotiator who keeps his eyes on profits even when a rare artefact turns up on "Pawn Stars." But there are some items that turn the pawn shop boss into a fanboy. On one occasion, it was a rare first edition copy of "Game of Thrones." When a seller named Grant brought the rarest edition of a "Game of Thrones" book signed by its author, George RR Martin, Harrison nearly tripped on his feet. In the end, Harrison fought hard to get a good deal and bagged the book for $1,600.
In the episode, Grant brought the book to Harrison's table, calling it the rarest edition ever made. In his interview, he said that he was looking to sell the book for $2,500 and invest the money into his collection of rare sports cards. "A friend of mine had a little money issues and he was selling his collection of first edition books. I had seen the show, knew it was massively popular, and figured this was a good one to pick up," Grant told Harrison.
Harrison was instantly intrigued as he was a big fan of the series. "The Game of Thrones is really an amazing series. It'll go down in history as one of the most popular series ever produced," Harrison commented. Grant further added that it was the first print edition of the series, and there were only 552 books published. "This is a numbered copy and it has been properly stored since day one," he claimed.
Harrison then asked for the price, and upon hearing $2,500, he admitted that he had no idea if that was fair. He then called his regular rare books expert, Rebecca, to come take a look at the item. Upon taking a look at the book, the expert noted that it was indeed signed and numbered by the author himself. "What I'm about to say is not gonna surprise you at all but I'm a fantasy nerd and so I've got a lot of things to say about this," she told the guest.
She went on to explain that the book wasn't the first print edition of the book, as that series was published in 1986. "All of the illustrations are from the 2000s," she explained. "It is what we call a signed limited edition. So, signed by the author and by the illustrators, and it's limited, which means there were only 500 copies total, this is number 257. Some people consider this book the holy grail of Game of Thrones collecting," she said. Coming to the appraisal, she estimated that such books usually sell for around $2,000 to $2,500, and Harrison could probably get even more in the range of about $3,500 to $4,000.
Once the expert left, Grant seemed to have grown confident about his asking price. However, Harrison begged to differ, saying that he may get a high price only in an extremely lucky situation. "I'll give you $1,500. It's more than any other book dealers gonna give, I think it's pretty safe," he reasoned. The seller countered with $1,800, and Harrison went up to $1,600, which Grant accepted.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Harrison later admitted that he was the biggest "Pawn Stars GOT Fan" and that he had binge-watched the series.
