We had been pricing a newer TV and VCR for our living room. Our VCRs had pretty much bitten the dust, and our TV was a hand-me-down from my parents and mid-80s vintage, so it didn't tune all of the cable channels (only 50 or 60) without the VCR.
Our other TV tuned all of the cable channels by itself, but it only had a CATV connection, meaning that we couldn't hook up anything else to it except the dying VCRs.
Another issue: My parents' old TV was a monster — well over 100 pounds — so we were concerned that our daughter would manage to tip it over. Squished punkin is very, very bad.
So, unless we wanted to do without one of these things, then we needed a newer, smaller TV with enough inputs, and a VCR.
Behold! The pawn shop!!
Pawn shops are good places for bargain hunters to go. But on the other end of the transaction are the guys who sold their toys for pennies on the dollar to the shop. It's an expensive lesson to learn, but at least the pawn shops were there.
One pawn shop I hadn't been in before had a lot of cool stuff — musical instruments, paintball markers, CDs, DVDs, jewelry, power tools, sound systems — and TVs!
I figured I couldn't get out of this new for much less than $150. The cheapest new TV was around $120 and the cheapest new VCR was about $40. He had a couple of TV/VCR combos there. One was marked $90. One didn't have a price. I asked him to bring it down so I could see the back. Lots of inputs on the back. I asked if he tested it. He said it's guaranteed for 30 days. (Really! That shocked me.)
The price tag said $70. He said I could have it for $50. SOLD! 😉
