F. 'Hardcore Pawn' star revels in unlikely celebrity

DETROIT — Les Gold is embracing his fame with gusto.

At age 62, the third-generation Detroit pawnbroker and star of the truTV reality series Hardcore Pawn is barely three years removed from the relative obscurity of toiling away in an industry perceived as a place where crackheads peddle stolen goods.

"I'm a celebrity," he marvels, reveling in his improbable notoriety.

These days, he pops up on TV chat shows such as Good Morning America. He's on the motivational speaking circuit. People come from Australia and the Netherlands to his American Jewelry and Loan emporium on Greenfield Road near 8 Mile Road in Detroit, hoping to meet him.

He even has a hardcover book coming out in June, his life story titled For What It's Worth: Business Wisdom From a Pawnbroker.

Last week, Gold was in a downtown Detroit office building, lecturing a roomful of 160 entrepreneurs half his age — brainy software geeks, mobile-app developers, Ivy League college grads — on how to negotiate.

"Some of you with this Internet stuff," Gold told them, "to me, you're just selling air" ... (lots of laughter from the audience) ... "You're selling a dream."

His message: Basic strategy and tactics are the same, whether you sell T-shirts and diamond rings like Gold's pawnshop, or air to mobile-phone users.

"I don't ever make the first move," Gold said. "I always start out by asking, 'How much do you want for it?' When they say a number and I say I can't do that, then they come lower. Soon you've got them bidding against themselves. Most people are scared to negotiate."

TruTV, a unit of Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting subsidiary, announced that Hardcore Pawn has been renewed for a seventh season. The show averaged 2.6 million viewers during its sixth season; the 100th episode was taped last month.

The show — featuring Gold, his son Seth and daughter Ashley Broad as the primary characters — debuted in December 2009 with a two-part pilot program that led to the filming of the weekly Tuesday night series the following year.

Gold related the tale of his journey to reality TV in a speech to a two-day gathering of Detroit Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on growing digital technology companies. Detroit Venture Partners was founded in 2010 with backing from Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert and is funding 15 companies, whose people compare the struggle of launching a start-up outfit to streetfighting.

Gold started working as a kid during the 1950s and '60s at his grandfather's Detroit pawnshop, Sam's Loans. He later opened American Jewelry and Loan in Oak Park in 1978, grew the business and relocated to the current Detroit site, a former bowling alley, in 1993.

A pitch for a show

In 2008 and 2009 when the U.S. economy tanked, American Jewelry was advertising on the same channel in Detroit that carried The Jerry Springer Show, Gold says. Richard Dominick, Springer's longtime producer, suggested a reality TV show from the pawnshop.

Seth didn't like the idea; Ashley was reluctant, too. Les and his wife, Lili, loved it. Three months of discussion among the family followed, until Les said, "With or without you, we're doing the show." The kids ultimately got on board — in part, Les suggested, because "I'm a loose cannon" and cooler heads would be needed.

At first, the show was a low-budget affair that produced little income for the Golds. Producers upped the ante as ratings and advertising revenue grew, but once Hardcore Pawn became a big hit, the stars and the producers hit an impasse over compensation.

"I said, 'Take the cameras out of the store.' When you have a product everybody wants, you don't cave," Gold told the venture capital group. A raise was forthcoming. "When their backs are to the wall, people will negotiate," Gold said.

Gold's son-in-law, Jordan Broad, suggested the idea for the book.

"I find a ghost writer, I tell my story," he says. "Not just pawnshop business advice, but stories about hold-ups, cops that got killed right in front of my store. Yours for $25.95."