Les Gold

About

Leslie “Les” Gold (born June 20, 1950) is an American pawnbroker, reality television star, author, and media personality. He is known for his role on truTV’s reality series, Hardcore Pawn.

Gold is a third generation pawnbroker/salesman, the grandson of a pawnbroker who once owned the company “Sam’s Loans”, a now-defunct pawnshop on Michigan Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Sam’s Loans was where Gold made his first sale, at age 7. In 2014, the Sam’s Loans building was remodeled into a pawn shop-themed restaurant, named “Gold Cash Gold”. The restaurant closed in 2020.
Gold began his first business at age 12, buying pizzas and reselling them by the slice to fellow students at Hebrew School.
Gold opened his own pawn shop, American Jewelry and Loan, in 1978, at the Green Eight Shopping Center on 8 Mile Road in Oak Park. In 1993, he moved it to its present location on Greenfield Road in Detroit near 8 Mile – a 50,000 square foot building that was formerly a bowling alley. The business now has 5 locations, employs up to 200 people and serves about 1,000 customers a day.

Gold, his family, and his pawn shops are central to the truTV series Hardcore…