Pawn Shop shopping

[Master-9]

I was thinking of looking at several pawn shops to pick up a few more lenses,
should i look for when looking for lenses?

[CyberPet]

Red stripes. :D

[ddelallata]

Pawn shops are usually pretty expensive :( I'd rather buy new from BH or Buydig.com

[BearLeeAlive]

I refuse to buy anything from pawn shops. Regardless of what they say, most of the goods in there are stolen. I know of lots of cases where people found their stolen items in local pawn shops. Buying things in pawn shops only promotes crime.

I know that some of the articles in there are from people needing quick cash when destitute. Most people wanting to sell things of these days have much better ways of doing it such as ebay.

Sorry about this wee rant, I just know of lots of friends and colleagues in the building industry who have tools stolen and some end up finding them here. I too have had lots of tools of good value stolen that I am sure wern't targeting for use by the thief, only for resale.

[ron chappel]

I buy most of my lenses at pawnshops.
-in fact i tour the shops around this area occasionally for underpriced camera gear then resell anything i don't want on ebay! :)
Here in australia the law requires all serial numbers be given to police and matched up to a database of stolen/missing items so finding stolen items is rare to non existant.

Things to look for are:

Does it look ok?

Does it actually work electronically and mechanically?

Fungus ! The way to look for this is to hold the lens up to strong light and look through it.If it's a zoom then cycle through the zoom range so that all surfaces are visable. Fungus usually looks like fine spiderweb type patterns (most common) or little white puffy shapes.

A faint haze (neutral colour). This usually means that the glue that bonds two internal elements together is breaking down.It's rare

About the only thing you can't properly check is wether the lens is a dud - i.e works perfectly but is optically below par for no easy to fix reason.
In general terms EF lenses seem to be more consistant .......

LATER EDIT ***than other brands that fit EOS ***

......... but it would be nice if pawnshops offered returns for any reason
Most here only allow reterns for mech/elec faults

Canon EF lenses are not too bad to buy because most flaws are immediately obvious.Because they are all electronic ,they tend to either work perfectly or not work at all.
Even the earliest models tend to be amazingly reliable

[BearLeeAlive]

Checking serial numbers is the law in Canada too. This is good in theory, but how many people actually know what their serial numbers are? I actually asked this question of most of the guys who worked for me and none of them had a clue. They all now have the serial numbers of their tools on a file on my computer just in case. I would bet most don't.

If people wanted to sell camera gear to make the best possible return on it, they would send it to a consignment store. In Calgary we have one store that deals in used camera gear exclusively and most of the major stores carry good used gear too.

Even if it was a small amount of their inventory was stolen stuff, anything that would promote crime so that we might benefit by saving a couple of dollars just does not sit well with me. If you have ever been victimized you would know what I mean. I am all for cost savings, but this route is not the right way to go.