About PawkBroker

Who runs it

I'm Taro Schenker, a software developer and researcher. I built the calculators, published the guides and put together the pawn shop directory. PawkBroker is owned by my company, Known by One, LLC. You can find me on LinkedIn.

I am not a pawnbroker, appraiser or gemologist, and nothing on this site is an appraisal. The guides draw on published sources: GIA diamond grading standards, state pawn laws and rate caps, precious metal spot prices, and prices on public resale marketplaces. They are written with the help of AI research and writing tools.

If you find a mistake, email contact@pawkbroker.com. Corrections are listed at the bottom of this page.

How the estimates are calculated

The calculators give two ranges: what a shop or dealer might pay to buy the item, and what a pawn shop might lend against it. They run in your browser, and nothing you enter is sent to us.

• Gold, silver and platinum: weight times purity times the spot price, which comes from Metals.dev and refreshes once a day. The sale range is 70 to 85 percent of that melt value.
• Jewelry: the melt value of the metal plus a fixed price per carat for any diamonds, then the same 70 to 85 percent.
• Diamonds: carat weight times a base price per carat, adjusted for cut, color, clarity, size and whether the stone has a grading report. The sale range is 60 to 85 percent of that.
• Watches and designer bags: a table of typical resale prices by brand and model, compiled in February 2026 and adjusted for condition and for box, papers and accessories. These prices do not update automatically.
• Pawn loans: 40 to 60 percent of the sale range, the usual share pawn shops lend against items they can resell.

A real offer depends on the shop's inspection, what it already has in stock and the market that day. Use the figures to judge whether an offer is reasonable, not as a price anyone has agreed to pay.

How shops get into the directory

The directory lists 30 pawn shops and jewelry buyers in 3 US cities. Each listing was checked against the shop's own website for its address, phone number and the goods it deals in when it was added, and the Houston listings were checked again in September 2026. Shops marked as luxury specialists say on their own websites that they employ gemologists, use authentication tools such as Entrupy, or deal in named luxury brands.

I have not visited the shops or checked their state licenses, so a listing is not a recommendation. Check a shop's license and reviews before you hand over an item. No shop pays to be listed.

How the site makes money

It doesn't yet. The plan is to charge pawnbrokers for introductions to people who ask to be contacted. Before that starts, this page will say so, and any form that sends your details to a shop will say which shop receives them and that PawkBroker is paid for the introduction. Paying shops will not be moved up the directory.

Corrections

• September 24, 2026: gold and jewelry estimates used a fixed gold price from February 2026 instead of the live spot price. From launch until this date they were about 15 percent too high. They now use the live price.

Contact

Email contact@pawkbroker.com, or see the contact page for what I can and can't help with.