Oh pawn shops, the finest collection of some of the strangest stuff that you will ever find in some cases. They take in a huge variety in merchandise and in some cases, you might think about taking your bowling ball to them, but will they take it?
Well that’s actually a very good question. Unfortunately there is no really easy answer to this one as bowling balls are kind of a unique item.
You see, pawn shops are really good at handling a lot of common items. Things like tools, jewelry and musical instruments are no problem for them.
But when it comes to more niche items, not all pawn shops work the same and that’s really the bottom line. For the purposes of this question, yes, bowling balls would probably be considered a very niche item.
It’s not because bowling isn’t a great sport but rather because it hasn’t enjoyed the same kind of popularity it once did recently and beyond that, there’s often times not a lot of people who really know much about bowling balls nor are there a lot of hungry buyers for them that walk into many pawn shops.
On top of it, as I’m sure you very well know, bowling balls can be very heavy and difficult to store and move around. That’s not really an upside for your average pawn shop and could negatively affect how they look at working with bowling balls.
But fear not – there are going to be plenty of pawn shops that absolutely will make loans on or buy bowling balls.
There are some pawn shops that may pay you very well for your used bowling balls.
Finding A Pawn Shop That Buys Bowling Balls
So, we’ve covered that bowling balls may not be the hottest item that a whole lot of pawn brokers get really excited about but that doesn’t mean it’s game over for you either.
In fact, it’s pretty easy to find out if any of the pawn shop in your area will work with you on one and take it in on loan or even offer to buy it from you.
The first thing you are going to want to do is go over the Google.com and search “Local Pawn Shops.” Google will provide you with a list of local pawn shops in your area as well as their phone numbers that you can use to call up the pawn brokers one by one and simply ask them if they take them in.
Doing that will save you a lot of wasted time and energy and in the end, that’s really the best way to go about doing this.
When You Find One That Does…
When you find a pawn shop that will take them in, you’re going to want to do a little homework up front.
This will help the pawn shop figure out what your ball is and what it may be worth to the right buyer.
This is of course even more true if your ball is customized or has had the ink worn off the outside of it which can make the ball harder for a pawn broker to accurately identify and therefore determine the value of.
You should be able to find most of what you need online for this kind of research, but of course, if you have any original paperwork or documents on the ball then be sure that you take those documents with you to your local pawn shop.
The Nerd’s Opinion
The bottom line on this is unless your ball is really exotic or cool looking than you probably shouldn’t expect to get too much money out of it unfortunately.
Bowling really just isn’t as popular as it once was and because of that there aren’t a whole lot of buyers out there looking for bowling balls in pawn shops.
I can tell you that in 8 years I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for a bowling ball once in my pawn shops and that’s really saying something because we get asked about all sorts of items.
So be realistic about what it is that you have and as long as you go into your local pawn shop with a reasonable expectation then you really should be just fine.
