'Pawn Stars' boss Rick Harrison pays a fortune for small rock that's possibly older than Earth
It's very hard to get Rick Harrison to shell out a significant amount after appraisals and negotiations on “Pawn Stars.” But the man who even let valuable items such as Pokémon cards go, paid more than $2,000 for a tiny rock. What made the rock so special was the fact that it came from outer space. “I have something here that is out of this world,” the guest said as he revealed a meteorite. The fact that it could be billions of years old fascinated Harrison, but he still wanted an expert to check it out.
The expert was a man named Robert Verish who claimed that he had been hunting meteorites for a couple of decades. He wanted to get a clear idea of the rock sitting in front of him. So, he whipped out his fancy tools, a magnet and a microscope. The guest had said that he used a magnet to find the meteorite in the first place. When he used his magnet on it, he saw a strong connection.
It was then time to place the rock under a microscope and confirm that he object was well and truly a meteorite. Verish was looking for round grains of metal and silicone. He was satisfied with what he saw and said that the rock was older than planet Earth itself. It had formed and had been floating around in space long before our planet had even solidified. “Wow, that’s pretty cool,” Harrison said upon hearing this.
When the guest asked where the other piece of the meteorite was, he said that it was at UCLA. This meant that the meteorite was catalogued and was worth a decent amount of money. When it came time to place a valuation on it, the expert said that it was worth $4,000. Harrison was not going to pay this much money for it, but all parties agreed that $2,100 was a fair price.
Sometimes, guests even come in with an unusually shaped rock without any idea of what it is, and hope that it's from outer space. That’s exactly what happened in a different episode of the show. A woman came in with a rock that looked like a flying saucer, and she had no idea what that was. She even claimed to have visited experts with it, and no one could give her an answer.
The rock weighed 40 lbs, as per the guest, and if it were a meteorite, it could be worth a lot of money. Harrison was intrigued by this and called in an expert of his own. Surprisingly, the expert knew exactly what it was after looking at it for a few minutes. He called it a concretion, which is what happens when a rock is hollow and over millions of years, water seeps into it, giving it an odd shape. The expert also said that these were not uncommon to find, which basically meant that it wasn’t worth any money unless you’re selling it to an avid rock collector.
