TV Success of 'Hardcore Pawn' Spawns 2nd Pawnshop in Pontiac

The slogan of Detroit’s massive American Jewelry and Loan on Greenfield is “Where Detroit Cashes In.” Apparently the pawnshop’s owners, the Gold family, take their message to heart: The overwhelming success of Hardcore Pawn, the reality TV series set within their store and the most-watched show on truTV, has motivated them to cash in with a second location in Pontiac.

The Golds have purchased the inventory of the former Premier Jewelry & Loan at 29 S. Telegraph in the Tel/Huron Plaza. Their grand opening and first official day of operation was Monday, Aug. 22.

“We believe our name is going to carry us over there,” says Seth Gold, the store’s young co-owner, who adds that a management team is being assembled for the satellite facility. “If not, then it’s all about the location, not about the owners.”

American Jewelry and Loan owner and patriarch Les Gold deemed the new store a can’t-lose proposition, leaping at the opportunity with the same gusto he displayed in deciding his family should star in their own national cable TV reality show three years ago.

But who’s going to run the new store? “That’s a good question!” Seth says, laughing. He says the plan at present is for at least one of the three principals – Les, Seth or Ashley Gold Broad, American’s feisty general manager – to be on site in Pontiac at all times.

That means the Detroit visitors and Hardcore Pawn fans who travel from as far as Florida and Washington State to see American Jewelry and Loan and meet the Golds now will have a second stop to make.

“We just had a tour bus come in to take a tour of the building, about 150 people,” Seth marvels. “It’s crazy, just crazy! But you’ve got to ride it while you can.”