AUSTIN, Texas -- From the outside, Cash America Pawn looks like any other pawn shop -- a place where the down-and-out and desperate wheel up to sell mom's jewelry.
Even as you walk past the iron gates and into the store, you don't notice anything special about it. A few dozen guitars hang near the front, and the usual assortment of power tools, stereo components and other odds and ends line the shelves.
But behind the counter and through the doors leading to the back room, there hides a treasure trove of musical delights.
Dozens of vintage guitars, basses, amplifiers, keyboards and other instruments are neatly organized in an open space in the middle of the warehouse-size storage area. They're all on stands -- the Gibsons over here, the Fenders down the middle, the archtops and acoustics over there by the massive stack of hardshell cases. A sitar leans against a vintage Fender Rhodes piano. All the pieces are lined up in perfect rows like a phalanx of soldiers waiting to march into battle.
Almost everything here will be gone in a matter of days.
This is the back stock of musical gear Cash America Pawn has been stashing in anticipation of the South By Southwest Music conference and festival taking place here this week. The store has been hoarding select gear for an entire year -- since last year's edition of SXSW -- and will move its inventory onto the sales floor Wednesday, the day the music portion of the conference gets under way.
"We've been doing the big sale for years," says manager Oliver Valdez, himself a musician who plays in the Austin band Horse+Donkey.
Bands and musicians converge on Austin from around the world to attend SXSW, one of the largest music industry conferences in North America. It's a prime opportunity for bands, labels, managers and business types to network, schmooze, take in one of the hundreds of live shows around town, and maybe even pick up a vintage ax or two.
It's Cash America's equivalent of Black Friday: Valdez says the store does between 30 percent and 40 percent of its retail business during the sale. Everything is priced to move. In this year's crop, a Fender Telecaster can be had for $600. Two very well-kept vintage Gibson SG guitars are tagged at around $1,000 each. A Fender Deluxe Reverb silverface amp from the late 1970s will go for a mere $300.
Locals shop the sale, too, but an increasing number of savvy SXSW attendees come from around the world for a chance to nab a sweet deal on a vintage guitar, Valdez says.
"Bands know about it, and we see some of the same bands coming through every year to check out what we've got," says Valdez.
The gear is a mix of regular retail purchases and items that patrons swapped for pawn loans they later defaulted on -- a "loss" in pawn parlance.
Not everything is in pristine condition. These are player's guitars, not collector's pieces. But the quality of what's on offer is certainly better than your average Hondos, Squiers, Peaveys and other common low-end pawn shop finds.
The store opens at 9 a.m. Wednesday for its annual sale. There are usually around 15 or 20 people lined up when the doors open. Valdez says some folks get there as early as 7 a.m. to grab the primo items first.
When Valdez opens the store, located at 611 South Lamar on Austin's South Side. it's a rush of activity and nervous energy. So if you want an awesome SXSW deal on a sweet used guitar, you'd better get there early and get in line.
"There are fights," Valdez says.
