PAWN STARS IS A CON.
My dad was on that show.
We went in and its just a normal ass pawn shop in a bad part of town. Its old, run down, fucking walls cracked outside and shit.
The guys you see on the show don't "work". They are just there for filming. Sure, they're the owners and all, but they stay in the back (unless filming, or making the 100 guests there to see their dumb shit happy). You can't walk in and talk to them.
All filming done on the show is staged. They tell you what you have to ask for, the amounts and whatnot.
If you have a story about the item, you can tell it...but if they don't like it, they make you change it.
If you didn't know it was on TV, you would go to the shop, then turn around and leave. It's like any other pawn shop in this town (though they get their high price items due to the publicity of the show, now).