Russian launch keys : Setting off your own ICBM?

The Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - what the buyer believed his keys could launch. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

I know times are getting tough out there, but the Russian launch keys that ended up on Pawn Stars last night pretty much took the cake. The owner thought these were keys for the soviet ICBM system, and he wanted to trade them in for a payday cash loan.

Russian ICBM launch keys aren't quite what they seem

When the owner of these Russian launch keys brought them into the Pawn Stars shop, he was convinced they would bring him thousands of dollars from these loan lenders. After an expert examined the keys, however, he found out that while these were soviet launch keys, they weren't quite for the intercontinental ballistic missile system. Instead, these keys were used at one point to launch spacecraft.

Get $10,000 for Russian launch keys?

The kicker of this story is not even in the fact that this customer was attempting to get easy cash loans off what he believed to be launch keys for a deadly system of weapons of mass destruction. It's not even in the mysterious origins of how he managed to get these Russian launch keys. The kicker of this story is the fact that the owner of these Russian launch keys wanted $10,000 for them. While riding the Soyuz costs $51 million, Rick "The Spotter" Harrison (famed for spotting big-ticket items) offered only $1,500. The seller didn't take the deal, and walked out of the shop. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "Russian launch keys :! Setting off your own ICBM?"