A lot of people ask pawn shops every day if they will take in tungsten rings. They are often surprised by the answers that they get. Find out more in this post.
A lot of people will ask me if pawn shops buy a certain type of item, and one of the most popular items that people ask about are rings.
Occasionally I get asked “Do pawn shops buy tungsten rings?”
Ultimately, the answer is up to the pawn shop in question.
You’ve got to understand that each pawn shop is run by an individual pawnbroker who has their own opinion about what makes a good item to loan on or buy versus what doesn’t/
That having been said, on average, most pawn shops won’t buy tungsten rings.
There’s a really simple reason for this.
Pawn shops like to deal with things that are easy for them to resell. If something looks like it would be a problem to resell, they typically aren’t comfortable making a loan against it or offering to buy it.
So with this in mind, they are happy to buy gold rings, because gold can always be melted to turned into money very quickly.
Silver can also be melted for cash, but it’s just not worth as much as gold, which is why fewer pawn shops will take it in.
But when we are talking about rings that aren’t made out of a precious metal, it can be very difficult for a pawn shop to turn that into cash if they buy it.
Now, you might be thinking “But I just want a loan on it?” Well, that’s understood, but you have to understand as well that not everyone who makes loans on things at a pawn shop comes back for them.
Because of that, pawn shops have to look at everything they take in as if they are going to be in the position of having to resell it one day.
Tungsten rings are pretty difficult to resell, particularly for pawn shops.
A lot of people take tungsten rings into pawn shops hoping that they will buy them or at least, make a loan on them. Sadly however, most pawn shops will not buy tungsten rings because they can be very tough to sell unless they have a customer looking for that particular ring in that exact size.
Why Are Tungsten Rings Hard For Pawn Shops To Resell
Well, there are a few things at play here.
First of all, pawn shops are known for having gold jewelry, and sometimes silver.
They aren’t known for having items made out of stainless steel, tungsten or titanium.
So, when people come into a pawn shop looking to buy a new ring for themselves, they aren’t often coming in with the idea of buying one made out of tungsten. They want something made out of gold.
So the pawn shop is immediately presented with an objection that they have to overcome in the customers eyes.
Ob top of it, there will be a much lower profit margin in a tungsten ring than there could be in a gold ring, so that’s another thing that works against your favor.
But more importantly than that, when people go into a pawn shop to buy a ring, they know that most of the time they are going to have to have it resided so that it fits them.
Well, not many jewelers will re-size tungsten rings. They are use to work with gold and silver rings all of the time and may not be able to do the work for the customer.
Knowing this, the pawn shop knows that in order to sell this ring, they are going to happen to have a customer that both wants a tungsten ring AND be the exact right size for that ring.
It’s pretty hard to have these two things come together so, there’s no real incentive for pawn shops to take them in, most of the time.
