My mom doesn't spill secrets either but my grandma from my dad's side does. Worse, she does it on purpose in front of many people to make the person look worse, and if the situation happened to involve her as well, "embellishes" the story to make herself look better. Needless to say I don't share secrets with her anymore.

According to imdb/wikipedia, it is still going. Season 17 was released in 2019 and they changed the format of the show in that season forward, making each episode one hour long instead of 30 minutes. The last episode from season 18 came out in November 2020 so I guess they're gonna do at least 18 seasons.
Also apparently their theme song was composed by Lynyrd Skynyrd, wow!

I mean yeah, if you get duped because you didn't do your research, that's your problem. Doesn't mean the person doing the duping is off the hook though.
Idk, from what I've seen they didn't seem super clear but maybe they've improved in later seasons. Over here in Czechia they only air the older seasons because they haven't translated and dubbed the new ones yet.

Lol that's why I wrote "most Brits" because I suspected that if I didn't, there'd be people going "Oh yeah?! Well what about Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver!" but oh well.
And yeah Gordon puts way too much olive oil into everything lol.

Old joke but still good lmao

Right, they're low-balling and an informed person who has done their research knows that they can sell it for a lot more elsewhere. Maybe scam is a strong word but there definitely is a big information asymmetry going on there, and it mostly goes unnoticed unless the person has done their research OR it's a rare/precious item that they need to call an appraiser for. Sure, they gotta turn a profit, that's how businesses work. But it's kinda striking when they have an appraiser on the show who tells the customer directly "This thing is worth at least $1000" and then the pawn shop owner goes "$250, take it or leave it". Like, damn, we get that you gotta turn a profit but $750 just for the item to sit at a dusty pawnshop?

I agree, the value of the items is very subjective, since you can't really account for things like production cost and have to examine the state of the item, its age, historical significance etc etc. There are a lot of variables, that's why you have to search through online listings to get an idea of what the item might be worth, and expect some margin of error. The people asking a higher price than the pawn shop is willing to give have also sometimes been in the wrong, because the item was in worse shape than others of the same kind sold online etc. So I'm definitely not saying they're always being scummy, just that they seem to consistently offer pretty low prices for rare items. But it's all for show anyway, maybe these speculations are what keeps the show going, idk.

Yeah... dishonesty about the item's value?
My parents watch the show from time to time so I sometimes catch snippets of it when I'm at their place, and from what I've seen so far, there's a huge difference between people who come into the pawn shop kinda just to see what that old looking thing they found at their deceased grandma's attic was worth and people who've searched through internet forums and listings to see what that item is usually sold for. The former group will usually accept any price, the latter often reluctantly accepts but some people just straight up tell them they'll go elsewhere.

Well, I wasn't expecting that, I'm happy to be proven wrong then!

Well said, I agree completely! I'd add little house repairs to the list as well, I think that's very important too.