Pawn Shops Get Respect Dealing Goes Mainstream, But Bargains Are Still ‘A Hit-And-Miss Thing’

Court Peterson once traded $250 in merchandise for a fiddle, only to sell it a few months later for $850.

The buyer then had it appraised: It was worth $3,000.

“That’s the art of a good pawn deal,” says Peterson, owner of Coeur d’Alene Pawn on Government Way. “Everybody who touched that fiddle was better off, and everybody’s happy.”

The art form hasn’t changed since the days of the grouchy old pawn shop owner who paid two bits for every item. But pawn shops have gained respectability.

Once badgered as merely an outlet for stolen goods, owners like Peterson now keep running files of known thieves and send police copies of their receipts. Some pawn shops specialize in single items - like guns or guitars. Some are even franchised.

As a result, Kootenai County’s two dozen shop owners are patronized by a layered subculture that seems to have moved into the mainstream.

Dabblers like Peggy and Warren Folda dicker for collectibles because it’s fun. He looks for guns and antique tools; she looks for old canning jars.

“It’s a hit-and-miss thing,” says Peggy Folda, who travels the pawn shop circuit with her husband a few times a year. “We see old stuff like we threw out 37 years ago. We don’t dare throw away a candy wrapper anymore because in a few years you’ll see a price tag on it.”

She’s paid $6 to $15 for 60-year-old jars that have bubbled and turned blue with age.

“I just put them on a shelf; it’s a history thing,” she says. “I just think of the stories they could tell.”

Journeymen hagglers like John and Jan Keogh study in advance and make their rounds of each shop a few times a month, nodding to familiar faces.

“You never know what kind of deals you’ll find, so you have to check frequently,” John Keogh says, as he eyes a tripod and a wireless remote sound system at The Pawn Shop on Kathleen Avenue. “For Christmas I got my son a float tube for $42 that was worth $142.”

Behind him, Jan Keogh takes notes.

“You don’t want to buy stuff you don’t know about,” she says. “If you see something you like, go home and research it.”

Kootenai County also is home to a handful of professionals who eke out livings as traders.

“If you want it, you’d better get there a day before me,” says one Coeur d’Alene trader, who declined to give his name.

He says he will drive to Colville or Missoula to buy a $300 slot machine. Of course, his 10 years of networking means he can resell it for $800, he says.

“You don’t learn it, you’re born with it,” he says of his trade. “My parents say I had a great uncle back east who was a millionaire junk dealer.”

A pawn shop typically is two businesses: A used goods market and a loan office.

In Kootenai County, the loan office is supported almost singlehandedly by its own subculture: Independent contractors.

“The only reason there are so many of us is you can’t do business with banks anymore,” says Al Landsgaard of Alvin’s Pawn in Rathdrum.

“They want five years’ history, for God sakes, before they’ll even look at you for a loan.”

Contractors pawn their tools - usually for a fee of up to 20 percent - to make payroll.

When the next big job comes in, they buy it all back.

“Once the building boom slows, these guys will move on to someplace else and you’ll probably see a reduction in the number of shops,” Peterson says.