Getting a pawn shop to buy your bowling balls might be a little bit more difficult than you’d think. Most pawn shops take jewelry, antiques, electronics, etc. They aren’t familiar with bowling balls, and could have a hard time pricing one.
Thankfully, there’s plenty of pawn shops all over the place, so if you find the first shop you go to won’t take them, you have plenty of other options and can start the journey of selling that old ball.
Just in case you can’t find a pawn shop near you that will take your ball, we’re going to cover a few other options for selling it too.
How to Choose the Right Pawn Shop
When looking to sell your bowling ball at a pawn shop your first question should be which pawn shop is best. While having the knowledge that it could be difficult to find one that specifically sells bowling balls, your best bet would be to find a shop that you can see has heavier items, random items, or even other bowling balls.
If you look into a pawn shop window and see only jewelry and electronics, they probably won’t be able to give you a good price for something they don’t already carry.
What Areas Are Best to Find Pawn Shops?
If you’re located in a small town, in any state, the amount of pawn shops near you might be limited. Thankfully, if there’s any larger towns near you, especially in the states of Florida and Texas there will be tons of pawn shops. You won’t have to search very far to find one. In fact, they’re only a quick google search away.
How Much Are Bowling Balls Worth?
Bowling balls range in prices depending on what they’re made of. Now if you were anything like me twenty minutes ago you would have had no idea bowling balls were made of different types of things. The normal bowling ball you see in a bowling alley is made of plastic, or a type of resin.
These can range anywhere from forty to sixty bucks. Higher quality balls can be sold for over two hundred and fifty bucks. On average though, you’ll get between ninety and one hundred twenty bucks for a normal ball.
Did you know that Storm bowling balls have tons of different fragrances available for their bowling balls? This Storm bowling ball is widely popular due to its birthday cake fragrance!
What Are the Different Types Bowling Balls Made Of?
Bowling balls range from being made out of plastic, to being made out of professional grade resin. The more expensive bowling balls have polyester coverstock, to make straight shots. But hey! You’re not interested in buying one. You wanna sell one!
Other Places to Sell Your Used Bowling Balls
Of course, sometimes luck isn’t on your side and you won’t get a pawn shop near you to buy off that bowling ball you’ve had stored for five years. Don’t fret though! There are plenty of other places where you can sell those bowling balls.
- Ebay
- Amazon
- Websites specifically selling used bowling balls
- Public bowling alleys
- Private bowling alleys
- Facebook market
- Pro bowling shops
- Craigslist
- Locally
- Yard Sale
See? There’s always alternative options when selling pretty much anything. All of the possible options listed above will range with prices of how much you can get for them. As an example, one on amazon might sell for forty bucks, but in a yard sale, will only sell for ten to fifteen bucks.
Cleaning Your Bowling Ball Before You Sell
How should you go about cleaning your ball before selling it? Trust me, when selling something online, or even in person, having it clean will help you sell it for more money.
What to Use to Clean Your Ball
There’s quite a few different ways to get your bowling ball clean and ready to sell.
- Windex (Some bowlers swear by this)
- A bucket of warm soapy water (15 minutes)
- Bowling Ball cleaner (A little expensive)
- A mixture of simple green, rubbing alcohol and water (put these in a spray bottle)
- Acetone (Yes, like nail polish remover)
- Magic eraser (For those pesky stains)
- Ammonia
Clean the finger holes too! All you have to do for this is squirt some of the cleaner you decide to use and take a cloth, twist it and clean those holes.
What to Do With Old Bowling Balls You Can’t Sell
Of course there’s always that slim chance you won’t be able to find anyone who will buy your bowling ball off you. As long as you’re a decent person, don’t just throw it away! There’s plenty of places to bring these balls to brighten up someone’s day.
Goodwill
If you’re like me, goodwill is the first place I think of when donating items I no longer want. You might think they won’t take bowling balls, but they do! Goodwill tends to take anything people are willing to donate.
Someone Who Raises Hogs
Apparently, hogs like to push around bowling balls in their pen. So you’d be giving little piggies a fun stimulation tool to help raise happy hogs!
Some Other Options:
- Decorate them to look like lawn decorations
- Donate to youth leagues
- Sheet metal workers
Sheet metal workers will use the bowling balls by pounding a steel rod into the thumb hole to help shape rounded metal! I never knew this until researching this, so that was super interesting to me!
Final Thoughts
Regardless of where you sell your used bowling balls, don’t expect to get a huge amount of money for them, unless they’re in amazing condition.
Take into account buying bowling balls anywhere, they’re typically pretty cheap. Most places sell them for ten to fifteen bucks unless it’s from a pro bowling shop.
When selling to a pro bowling shop, remember they have to make a profit when they resell the balls you sell to them, so you won’t get as much as if you’re selling to a specific person. This goes with any public place that’s going to sell the bowling ball to someone else at a higher price. Everyone’s got to make some sort of profit.