The $200 MILLION Painting that SHOCKED Rick On Pawn Stars

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]These are all original illustrations.

[00:00:01]Everything is one of a kind. These are amazing. Value of the collection adds about $375,000.

[00:00:06]>> They really are some of the greatest art I've ever seen. I'll tell you what, I'll give you 200 [music] grand. 250. I can't believe I'm doing this, but um you got a deal. Awesome. Congratulations.

[00:00:18]The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop has seen rare collectibles before, but nothing like this.

[00:00:24]When a painting said to be worth $200 million walked into the shop, it immediately stopped everything.

[00:00:31]This was the insurance policy for that painting at that time.

[00:00:35]And it was insured at that time at $2.1 million. Rick Harrison was visibly shocked because the number alone made no sense for a pawn transaction.

[00:00:45]As the appraisal began, what looked like a routine evaluation quickly turned into one of the most unbelievable moments in the shop's history. So, how does a piece of art like this even end up here? And more importantly, is it real? Join us as we break down the mystery behind the $200 million painting that left the Pawn Stars crew completely stunned on the Price of History, a one-of-a-kind pawn shop.

[00:01:11]Most people never walk into a pawn shop expecting to [music] see history. Yet over the years, Pawn Stars became exactly that kind of place.

[00:01:20]What started as a small family-run business in Las Vegas slowly transformed into one of the most unpredictable showcases of rare collectibles in television history. One day it could be an old military relic sitting on the counter. The next, a signed piece of American history worth more than most homes. And after years of watching priceless artifacts pass through those famous doors, some [music] fans started believing there was almost nothing too valuable, too rare, or too unbelievable for the shop to handle. That is exactly why rumors surrounding a supposed $200 million painting spread so quickly among viewers.

[00:01:59]The idea sounded absurd at first.

[00:02:02]After all, who would carry a masterpiece worth more than a private jet into a pawn shop?

[00:02:07]But the strange part is that Pawn Stars had already spent years making impossible stories feel real.

[00:02:14]That wasn't always the case, and understanding how a humble Las Vegas pawn shop arrived at that unlikely status is the first step toward entertaining a truly audacious question.

[00:02:25]The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop opened its doors in 1989.

[00:02:30]The hard-won result of patriarch Richard "The Old Man" Harrison's relentless pursuit of one of the last available pawn licenses in Las Vegas.

[00:02:38]For years, it was exactly what it appeared to be.

[00:02:41]A family-run business competing against corporate giants.

[00:02:45]Rick Harrison, determined to stand out, made it company policy in the early 1990s to hang at least one Picasso on the wall, a symbolic declaration that his shop would be different.

[00:02:58]Then in July 2009, Pawn Stars debuted on the History Channel, chronicling the daily activities of the Harrison family. I signed this contract in 2009. Hopefully, I'm sure there'll be another show out there called Pawn 2.0. 700 episodes Oh, yeah, I said it's comfort television.

[00:03:14]Rick, his father, "The Old Man", Rick's son, Corey "Big Hoss", and Corey's childhood friend Austin "Chumlee" Russell.

[00:03:24]Within months, the show became the network's highest-rated series and the number two reality show on all of television, second only to Jersey Shore.

[00:03:34]What Rick had hoped might last a season or two to help the business instead became one of the most popular shows in television history.

[00:03:42]By 2019, it had logged over 500 episodes.

[00:03:47]But the show's longevity alone doesn't explain why a $200 million painting What matters is what the show became.

[00:03:58]Viewers tuned in, not just for the haggling, but for the discovery. The chance that something sitting in someone's attic might be worth a small fortune.

[00:04:08]Season after season, the stakes escalated, and by the time the series entered its second decade, the question was no longer "Can the pawn shop handle items of immense value?" But rather, "What's the limit?"

[00:04:23]Which is why when the most expensive item was brought to Rick, nobody doubted if the shop could afford it.

[00:04:29]Even though it is a multi-million dollar item.

[00:04:31]So, what was it? And how did it get on the show?

[00:04:35]The most expensive item to pawn.

[00:04:37]This might sound unbelievable, but the most expensive item ever brought to Rick Harrison was a $20 gold piece coin.

[00:04:45]But that coin carried the weight of a federal crime and a three-decade-long legal battle.

[00:04:51]This was the 1933 Double Eagle, and its story begins long before it ever reached the pawn shop counter. Okay. You got here a 1907 Saint-Gaudens $20 [music] gold piece. In 1933, the United States Mint produced 445,500 of these $20 gold coins, designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and widely considered one of the most beautiful coins ever minted. But before a single one could be released to the public, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order pulling the country off the gold standard to fight the Great Depression.

[00:05:32]Banks were forbidden from paying out gold coins or certificates.

[00:05:36]The entire mintage of 1933 Double Eagles, every single one, was ordered to be melted down.

[00:05:43]Most of them were, but a handful escaped. Exactly how is still a matter of debate among numismatic historians.

[00:05:51]What is known is that by the 1940s, a few of these outlaw coins had found their way into private hands, sold quietly through advertisements for as little as $1,000 to $2,200, a tidy sum at the time, but a fraction of what was to come.

[00:06:09]One of those coins made its way to King Farouk of Egypt, a notorious collector who acquired his Double Eagle in 1944.

[00:06:17]He applied for and received an export license from the United States Treasury, making his coin technically legal to own, a loophole that would [music] prove decisive decades later.

[00:06:28]The coin disappeared from the king's possession after his overthrow in the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, vanishing for nearly 40 years before resurfacing in America in the 1990s.

[00:06:40]The moment it arrived, the FBI launched a sting operation. Two coin dealers were arrested. Legal action dragged on for years.

[00:06:49]The end result was historic. A federal court ruled that one specific 1933 Double Eagle, the one that had been legally exported to King Farouk, [music] could be sold and owned by a private citizen.

[00:07:02]Uh in the 1940s, uh King Farouk of Egypt was the biggest coin collector in the world and purchased the coin in the United States. In June 2021, that coin sold at auction for $18.9 million, setting a world record for the highest price ever paid [music] for a single coin in a public sale.

[00:07:22]And then in 2024, that same coin walked into Rick Harrison's world. Not into the pawn shop itself, the security risks were too great, but into the Legacy Club, a rooftop cocktail lounge at the Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

[00:07:39]The coin's representative, Ian Russell of Great Collections, met Rick in a room lined with 500 gold bars worth more than $2 million.

[00:07:49]Rick called in his coin expert Jeff Garrett who examined the PCGS graded 1933 Double Eagle and could barely speak.

[00:07:59]Then came the numbers.

[00:08:01]The owner wanted more than $30 million.

[00:08:04]Rick, speaking on behalf of a private buyer, countered at $25 million.

[00:08:09]The seller declined.

[00:08:11]There was no deal.

[00:08:13]The most expensive item ever appraised on Pawn Stars walked out without a sale.

[00:08:18]But the authentication process itself, the scrutiny, the experts, the high stakes gamble of trusting a single piece of history was far from simple. In fact, for every legitimate treasure like the Double Eagle, there are a dozen fakes, forgeries, and nightmares waiting to unravel.

[00:08:37]What happens when the experts disagree?

[00:08:39]And what happens when being wrong could destroy the entire show?

[00:08:44]The authentication nightmare.

[00:08:47]Sellers always walk in with a compelling story and high hopes.

[00:08:51]But when the expert arrives, the real truth surfaces.

[00:08:54]Consider the Magritte painting that cost Rick Harrison $10,000 and that was after he got off cheap. So, I have a customer in the store with a painting that [music] he says is painted by René Magritte. The seller was a middle-aged man who claimed his family had owned the painting for decades.

[00:09:12]It was a small canvas, maybe 12 in by 16, showing a bowler-hatted figure floating against a cloudy sky, classic René Magritte.

[00:09:21]The seller wasn't asking for millions, he just wanted an appraisal and maybe an offer.

[00:09:27]Rick called in Chad Samson, a fine art appraiser who had seen his share of fakes.

[00:09:33]Chad studied the painting for a long time.

[00:09:36]Then he sat Rick down and delivered the gut punch.

[00:09:40]"The bad news is my opinion means nothing."

[00:09:44]The only authority that mattered was the Magritte Committee in Belgium. Rick had a choice, walk away or gamble. He gambled.

[00:09:52]He paid the seller $10,000 and flew himself and Chumlee to Europe for the final verdict.

[00:09:58]The letter arrived in a stiff envelope.

[00:10:01]Rick opened it on camera.

[00:10:03]"The committee met yesterday." He read aloud.

[00:10:06]"And is of the opinion that the work presented is not a work by René Magritte."

[00:10:12]The disappointment on his face was real.

[00:10:15]$10,000 gone.

[00:10:17]Now scale that number up 100 times.

[00:10:20]A painting allegedly worth $200 million doesn't get authenticated with a tape measure or a phone call to a Belgian committee.

[00:10:28]It requires months of scientific testing, pigment analysis, carbon dating, infrared reflectography.

[00:10:35]It requires tracing ownership back centuries, not decades.

[00:10:40]And if Rick gets it wrong, the show doesn't just lose money.

[00:10:44]It loses credibility forever.

[00:10:46]>> [music] >> One mistake at that level could run down the entire Pawn Stars empire.

[00:10:51]That fear has led Rick and his team to pass on items that later turned out to be genuine.

[00:10:57]Some of those misses still haunt them.

[00:10:59]What did they walk away from?

[00:11:01]And what did they leave on the table?

[00:11:03]The fear of being wrong.

[00:11:06]In the world of Pawn Stars, being wrong can cost a fortune, but the fear of being wrong can also make one miss out on a life-changing fortune.

[00:11:15]And over the years, that exact thing has happened more than once.

[00:11:19]One of the most painful near misses began with a customer who looked completely ordinary.

[00:11:24]On a slow afternoon, a man in faded jeans walked into the shop carrying a small wooden box.

[00:11:30]Nothing about him suggested he was holding history in his hands.

[00:11:34]Rick probably expected old jewelry, loose coins, maybe a family heirloom.

[00:11:39]Instead, the man carefully opened the box to reveal a strange blackened fragment that looked more like burned plastic than anything valuable.

[00:11:49]According to the seller, it was a piece of the Apollo 13 command module's heat shield. That's a piece of Apollo 13 heat shield.

[00:11:57]The story sounded unbelievable. The man claimed his uncle had worked at NASA during the 1970s and received a fragment after the mission's investigation wrapped up. Most people would have dismissed the claim immediately.

[00:12:10]Rick didn't. Instead, he called in a space memorabilia expert. The specialist studied the object carefully beneath a magnifying light, checking the material, texture, and burn patterns across the surface.

[00:12:25]After several tense minutes, he finally looked up.

[00:12:29]This could absolutely be genuine.

[00:12:33]Suddenly, the atmosphere inside the shop changed.

[00:12:37]Because if the fragment truly came from Apollo 13, it was more than just space memorabilia.

[00:12:43]But then came the problem that destroys more deals than fake signatures ever could. Provenance.

[00:12:49]The seller had no paperwork connecting the fragment back to NASA. Without proof, the piece was potentially priceless to the right collector, but almost impossible to safely resell.

[00:13:00]The owner wanted $50,000.

[00:13:03]Rick hesitated.

[00:13:05]Without documentation, spending that kind of money could become a disaster.

[00:13:09]If experts later questioned the item publicly, the shop's reputation would take the hit.

[00:13:16]Rick finally made a much smaller offer.

[00:13:18]$2,000.

[00:13:20]The seller refused instantly.

[00:13:22]Minutes later, the man closed the wooden box and walked out of the shop carrying what may have been one of the most incredible pieces of space flight history ever to appear on the counter.

[00:13:33]Another painful miss came from a completely different world, comic book history.

[00:13:39]This time, the seller arrived carrying a small cardboard package no bigger than a lunch box.

[00:13:45]Inside sat a tiny [music] painted figure dressed in blue with a red cape, the very first Superman action figure ever produced, the original 1939 release.

[00:13:56]It's the first superhero action figure of anybody. Superman? Yes, sir. [music] The owner explained that his grandfather had purchased it decades earlier for just 25 cents and somehow kept it preserved inside its original packaging all these years.

[00:14:12]Even Rick immediately understood how rare that was.

[00:14:15]Vintage toys are already valuable, but first generation superhero collectibles exist in an entirely different universe for collectors.

[00:14:25]So, Rick [music] brought in a toy expert to inspect it. Using a jeweler's loupe, the specialist carefully examined the paint, mold seams, packaging materials, and printing details before delivering the verdict every collector hopes to hear.

[00:14:40]It's authentic. [music] The figure was estimated to be worth somewhere between $8,000 The seller asked for six.

[00:14:49]And somehow, despite the authentication, despite the rarity, despite the history sitting directly in front of him, Rick still could not convince himself to make the leap.

[00:14:59]He offered $2,000 instead.

[00:15:02]The owner laughed in disbelief. 5,000, he insisted, was the absolute minimum.

[00:15:08]But Rick refused, and so the seller carefully packed the figure back into its box and walked away with a piece of superhero history still under his arm.

[00:15:17]That is the strange psychology of the pawn business.

[00:15:21]Rick Harrison has taken massive risks on bizarre prototypes, strange antiques, and experimental collectibles before.

[00:15:29]Yet, sometimes the items that feel safest turn into the hardest decisions of all. Not every story from the pawn shop ends with a miss, though. For every item that slipped through Rick's fingers, there's another that he grabbed with both hands and turned into a legendary win.

[00:15:45]The biggest wins.

[00:15:47]Every once in a while, the shop landed a deal so unbelievable that even Rick Harrison knew he was looking at history sitting on the counter.

[00:15:56]And out of all the purchases ever made on the show, two stood above the rest.

[00:16:01]The first item seller was a quiet middle-aged collector who claimed he owned original drawings by legendary children's illustrator Maurice Sendak.

[00:16:11]Where the wild things are. It was one of Maurice Sendak's earliest books written and actually illustrated.

[00:16:15]>> At first glance, the pages looked deceptively simple. Rough sketches in pencil [music] and ink. Some unfinished, some smudged with eraser marks.

[00:16:25]But as he laid them across the counter one by one, Rick immediately realized what he was staring at.

[00:16:32]These were early concept drawings for Where the Wild Things Are.

[00:16:37]Rick called in an expert who carefully examined the sketches before confirming the provenance. The drawings had reportedly come directly from the publisher's archive decades earlier before eventually ending up in the collector's hands.

[00:16:50]Then came the number that changed the room.

[00:16:53]At auction, the collection could sell for more than $300,000.

[00:16:58]Rick offered $250,000 right now.

[00:17:01]The seller accepted, and just like that, Rick Harrison made the most expensive purchase in the show's history.

[00:17:08]Later, holding one of the unfinished wild things in front of the camera, Rick smiled and said, "Now I know where the wild things are."

[00:17:16]But even deal would eventually face competition from a discovery that sounded less like a pawn shop transaction and more like the opening scene of an adventure movie.

[00:17:27]This time, it arrived inside an old wooden box inherited from a man's grandfather.

[00:17:33]According to the owner, the box had been sitting untouched for decades after his grandfather bought it at a garage sale in the 1960s for less than a dollar.

[00:17:43]Nobody in the family had bothered opening it until the night before coming to the shop.

[00:17:48]Rick immediately called in a shipwreck expert, and within [music] minutes, the atmosphere inside the shop completely changed. The markings stamped into the bar pointed to something extraordinary.

[00:18:01]The legendary Spanish treasure fleet lost in the 1715 hurricane off the coast of Florida.

[00:18:08]11 ships carrying massive amounts of gold and silver had disappeared beneath the ocean during the storm, creating one of the most famous treasure stories in American history.

[00:18:19]The expert held the bar beneath the light, studying the markings carefully before finally looking up.

[00:18:25]"This came from the 1715 fleet."

[00:18:28]Suddenly, the object sitting on the counter was no longer just gold.

[00:18:33]It was shipwreck treasure that had spent centuries at the bottom of the ocean before somehow ending up forgotten inside a garage sale box. When the bar was weighed, its gold value alone reached tens of thousands of dollars.

[00:18:47]But, because of its historical connection to the Spanish fleet, collectors could value it far higher.

[00:18:53]Rick looked at the owner and offered him $35,000.

[00:18:57]Without hesitation, he accepted the deal immediately.

[00:19:01]And somehow those stories explain exactly why audiences became obsessed with Pawn Stars in the first place.

[00:19:07]Because every time someone walked through those doors, there was always the possibility that history or fortune was hiding inside something ordinary.

[00:19:17]But while the items made the headlines, the real reason the show lasted so long was the people behind the counter.

[00:19:24]And over the years, those people changed just as much as the shop itself.

[00:19:28]The people behind the counter.

[00:19:31]For nearly two decades, Pawn Stars convinced viewers they were watching a show about rare collectibles. But after hundreds of episodes, something became obvious.

[00:19:41]The items were never the real reason people kept coming back.

[00:19:45]The real show was the family behind the counter.

[00:19:49]At the center of it all was Rick Harrison, the businessman constantly deciding whether an item was a hidden fortune or an expensive mistake.

[00:19:57]Even now at 61 years old, Rick still walks into the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on Las Vegas Boulevard almost every day.

[00:20:06]Because while the cameras may have slowed down, the business itself never stopped. [music] The future of the show, however, is another story.

[00:20:15]In early 2025, Rick confirmed that Pawn Stars was no longer under contract with the History Channel.

[00:20:21]Filming had effectively stalled, leaving the series in a strange limbo after more than 600 episodes.

[00:20:28]Rick tried to stay optimistic, even joking about a possible Pawn Stars 2.0.

[00:20:34]Stays with History. Goes elsewhere as Pawn 2.0. Or if sometime you just decide [music] had enough. But behind the scenes, the uncertainty was real.

[00:20:45]For the first time in years, nobody seemed completely sure what the future of the franchise would look like.

[00:20:52]Still, Rick kept moving.

[00:20:55]He married Angie Paluskina in Cancun using a ring that reportedly came directly from the pawn shop itself.

[00:21:02]He started learning how to fly his own serious sport aircraft, chasing a dream he had talked about for years.

[00:21:08]And together with Chumlee, he launched a podcast called Pawn After Dark, filmed inside the same building that made both of them famous.

[00:21:17]In a way, it felt like Rick was slowly preparing for life beyond television, while still refusing to fully let the show go.

[00:21:25]But the biggest change inside the Pawn Stars world came from the person viewers once assumed would eventually take everything over, Corey Harrison.

[00:21:34]For years, Corey Big Hoss Harrison looked like the future of the business.

[00:21:39]Audiences watched him grow from an impatient young employee into someone Rick trusted with serious negotiations and expensive decisions.

[00:21:49]But after years of filming, Corey eventually admitted something most fans never expected to hear.

[00:21:55]He was tired of the life.

[00:21:58]In 2024, shortly after the latest season wrapped filming, Corey left Las Vegas entirely and moved to Tulum, Mexico.

[00:22:07]According to him, he had no plans to return permanently.

[00:22:11]He started building new projects in Mexico, including a barbecue venture called Big Hoss's Smoke N' Joint, and plans for his own podcast.

[00:22:20]And then there's Austin Russell, the person almost nobody expected to become one of the last remaining pillars of the show.

[00:22:27]Long before television producers arrived, Chumlee was simply Corey's childhood friend working at the shop.

[00:22:34]In the early seasons, he was treated as comic relief, the guy making mistakes, getting mocked, and accidentally creating chaos behind the counter.

[00:22:44]But over time, viewers became attached to him in a way nobody predicted.

[00:22:48]Because unlike the expensive collectibles surrounding him, Chumlee felt strangely normal.

[00:22:54]Years later, he is still there, working inside the shop.

[00:22:59]Outside the pawn business, he has expanded into his own ventures, including a candy store on the Las Vegas strip and occasional DJ appearances.

[00:23:09]He even joked publicly about wanting to compete on Dancing with the Stars someday.

[00:23:13]And if Pawn Stars ever truly returns, most fans assume Chumlee will still be standing beside Rick when the cameras start rolling again.

[00:23:22]But one person never came back.

[00:23:24]>> [music] >> Richard Benjamin Harrison, known simply as the old man, died in 2018 after battling Parkinson's disease, and his death changed the atmosphere of the show permanently. The old man represented something the series could never fully replace.

[00:23:41]He was stubborn, impatient, brutally honest, and completely uninterested in pretending for television.

[00:23:48]Even when the show became a global success, he still acted like customers were interrupting his day by speaking to him.

[00:23:56]That was exactly why audiences loved him.

[00:23:59]Maybe Pawn Stars eventually comes back in some new form. Maybe it doesn't.

[00:24:04]Rumors about a smaller reboot have circulated for months, but nothing has been officially confirmed.

[00:24:10]For now, the series sits in limbo, not fully over, but no longer moving the way it once did.

[00:24:17]And honestly, that uncertainty fits the shop's story perfectly.

[00:24:21]What other lost treasure do you think could emerge next into the spotlight?

[00:24:26]And with appraisals already climbing into the tens of millions, what kind of discovery would it take for Pawn Stars to raise the stakes even higher?

[00:24:35]Share your thoughts with us in the comments section. Remember to like, share, and subscribe for more. Also, click the next video showing on your screen.

[00:24:45]You will enjoy it.