Scanning for Pawnshop Silver

I am jealous of my North American brothers and sisters. I often see a post about one of our SGS members just casually browsing the local shops for silver and picking up some sweet discounts. Old mate @thedamus has been famous for it for years and I always wished I could do the same over here. Problem is there is no real LCS over here and I need to drive over 2 hours to get to Sydney if I want to visit a Bullion Dealer and typically the buys there are straight from the mint, so there's no bargains to be had...

The other day I thought I'd have another shot so went to the nearest (and seemingly ONLY) pawnshop at Nowra, which is about 20 minutes away. These guys always struck me as real bottom feeders but they DO advertise that they buy and sell gold and silver, so what the hell - maybe there is something in there worth buying.

I figured anything of value was likely to be behind glass or even hidden from sight so I asked the guy there straight up. Do you have any gold and silver to sell? Yep, it's over there. Any coins or bullion? Nope, just jewelry. So I went to have a look. A lot of what I would consider to be junk. Pandora charms and cheap rings, bracelets, necklaces. Probably sterling silver at best. Unlikely to be worth even melting.

So I went back to ask. Do you buy silver and gold? Yep. What do you buy for? Pause...confused look. He tells me I'd have to bring it in. I explain it would be standard bullion 9999 purity 1 oz generic stuff. Still no answer. I could tell from the somewhat glazed look that he had no idea what I was talking about. Surely something like "Spot minus 5%" would be a reasonable response? Nope. "You'll have to bring it in" was the reply. Sounds like he has no idea and I'd have to expect a seriously low ball offer. Maybe I'll go in with a piece for shits and giggles to see what the offer is. Or maybe I'll just go back to being jealous of my North American stacker friends...