Hardcore Pawn Facts That Are Worth Their Weight In Gold

The stars of Hardcore Pawn will tell you that a story comes with every item that passes through their shop's doors, and they're not kidding. Every time someone walks into American Jewelry & Loan in Detroit, Michigan carrying an old engagement ring, signed hockey jersey, or a slightly used iRobot automated vacuum cleaner, there's a whole lot of history that comes along with it. That's what makes a pawn shop such an interesting place to set a reality show, to which Hardcore Pawn's five-year run on truTV will attest. 

Of course, not every story is created equal. Only a small fraction of those stories actually makes it on the air. The rest, alas, are left on the cutting room floor, to later be dusted off and presented here. If you've ever wondered about the real stories behind the counter at Detroit's favorite televised pawn shop, then you're in luck. Open up your safe and pull out your antique reading glasses: this is the untold truth of Hardcore Pawn. 

In December 2014, Michigan state senators wanted to introduce a bill that allowed pawn shops to increase the interest they charged on pawned items by 20% per month. While this sounds like something shop owners would support wholeheartedly, Seth Gold of American Jewelry & Loan actually opposed the measure, explaining to ABC News, "Our business is predicated on people getting their stuff back... if you make the interest rate higher, the default rate is going to explode." With that kind of civic commitment Gold could run for office, although we'd never suggest anyone give up the noble calling of pawn-shopping to go into politics.

Not only are the Golds men of the people, the folks at American Jewelry & Loan are also patriots. Back in 2012, they helped the U.S. Secret Service nab Kenny "Boom" Smith, who attempted to sell some bogus greenbacks and a counterfeiting machine to the famous pawn shop. But Les Gold really thinks the fool was just after his 15 minutes of fame, as Smith signed a waiver to appear on the show. It's unlikely that Smith has a future in television, except maybe as a regular on World's Dumbest.

Ashley Gold Broad may not be the type to always put family first. In December 2015, she left both the show and the family store to strike out on her own, opening an online retail outlet, Pawn Chick Shopping (now called AshleyGold.com). Broad claims she made the decision because she wanted to spend more time with her husband and kids. In an interview with Local 4, Ashley further explained why she left Hardcore Pawn and the shop, saying, "It was like Groundhog's Day. I got up every day, put on my same black sweater for work, my black tank tops, my jeans, my same black shoes, and I did the same routine every single day. And I realized I was not happy."

This may be true, but she also seems to think she can do better than her father and brother. That's cold, even for a pawn shop employee.

American Jewelry & Loan may not be the safest place to visit, even by pawn shop standards. Detroit resident David Kapuscinski, who made a memorable appearance on the show in 2013, was killed two years later in a confrontation with police. According to reports, Kapuscinski failed to obey verbal orders from officers called to his apartment during a domestic disturbance, which resulted in repeated tasering. Kapuscinski's girlfriend claimed it was a misunderstanding, and told reporters that the thick-headed bravado he displayed on the show was just part of a setup for the series.

A few months after the two lunkheads got themselves arrested, Chicago's Royal Pawn Shop suffered a tragic loss. Security guard Carl "Carlos" Deals, who really had the best name for a pawn shop employee, was found unresponsive at his home and later pronounced dead by Cook County's medical examiner. Of his deceased employee, shop owner Randy Cohen said, "As big as he was, that's as big of a heart Carlos had...I miss him already."

Over the years, many reality TV shows have been accused of or exposed as being fake. What about Hardcore Pawns? If Seth is to be believed, the show is 100 percent real. "We're pawnbrokers, not actors," he said in his Reddit AMA chat, when asked if customers ever turn it up for the cameras.

He continued: "The truth is, these are real customers. Also, the stuff you see us buy on the show? You can see that it's real, too, because we have things you've seen on the show for sale on our showroom floor, or at pawndetroit.com."

Some view pawn shops as disreputable or even exploitative businesses, to whom individuals desperate for quick cash sell their treasures for a low amount only for the store to jack up the price and unload the item at a significant profit. The operators of Detroit's American Jewelry and Loan, the pawn shop from truTV's "Hardcore Pawn," try to approach transactions differently. The store positions itself as a bank-like institution for those who don't regularly have access to financial services, or who the FDIC calls the "unbanked." "We provide a resource to those people to make their ends meet," Seth Gold told the Detroit Free Press. "We see that time and time again. So we're providing a service for those folks that don't have those opportunities to go to the banks."

The company also gives back to the community in a more direct manner, donating money, time, labor, and space to charitable endeavors that support residents of Detroit and the surrounding area. American Jewelry and Loan runs auctions and hosts events for Wigs for Kids and is affiliated with the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, as well as the academic work-prep program Winning Futures.

"Hardcore Pawn" aired its last episode on truTV in 2015. Enough time has passed and enough positive memories of the show ingrained into so many fans' brains that the time could be right for a reboot. Should a production company of truTV spring into action and order a Season 10 of "Hardcore Pawn," original series star, Bobby Janiec, has mixed feelings about participating, if he were even given the opportunity.

"Somebody had asked me would I do a reunion show," he told the Sibp55 podcast in 2023. "I would do it, in a heartbeat." But as for a full-on reboot, depicting day-to-day life at a Detroit pawnbroker? "I don't think I'd be asked." Janiec hasn't set foot in the store since he quit his job there in 2016, months after the TV series ended production. "If there was ever a reboot I would never be another employee of that store. I would never probably get called back."

"Hardcore Pawn" ended production in 2015, but Rich Pyle's time on the series ended in 2014. It wasn't until 2023 that the reasons behind his sudden exit were finally publicly disclosed. Pyle was something of a victim of his own success, and that of the show. Pyle was a manager at Detroit's American Jewelry and Loan, but not a member of the Gold family that ran the family business. His main job was to work the layaway window and deliver cash-outs while occasionally consulting on brokering items in which he had some expertise, such as musical instruments.

"From what I saw, TV started to become more important than the job," Pyle's former co-worker and co-star Bobby Janiec said on TikTok. "There were times like you saw on episodes where he would be out on the floor, taking pictures with people or walking around with a cup of coffee, not where he should have been." Those instances and others led Les and Seth Gold to place Pyle on probation. They fired him after he botched a deal on a jewelry item, which aired on an episode of "Hardcore Pawn." "That deal with the 18-carat gold that you guys saw when he let that piece walk, that was one of the final things that led up to him getting let go," Janiec said.