Pawn Shopping Pawn Shops Attract A Crowd Around This Time Of Year; Whether For Extra Cash Or Bargain Prices

Where can you sell a stuffed elk, get a loan on the family Bible, hear an outrageous tale and discover a surprising bargain?

Pawn shop enthusiast Daniel Peterson knows. Last week, the Valley man plopped down $130 and drove home with a 27-inch Samsung stereo TV - a great Christmas gift for his wife and daughters.

There was no sale, no special coupon, he said.

And nothing to be embarrassed about.

“I bought my cell phone here, and my wedding ring. I bought a $450 ArtCarved comfort-fit ring for $125,” he said, walking out of Shamrock Pawn Shop on East Sprague Avenue.

“You can get six CDs for $20 here,” he said. “Pawn shops are the way to go.”

Valley pawn shops do good business this time of year. They also attract a wider spectrum of customers than you might think: from the truly money-strapped to the upper-middle class.

They’re a blend of bank, garage sale, retail store and social service agency. They can be anything from a smoky, dark hole-in-the-wall, to a bright, festive shop, decked out in Christmas finery.

At Pawn 1 Village on East Sprague, tinsel hangs from the walls and miniature Christmas trees line the counters. Employees wear red Santa hats and talk about upcoming holiday sales and 30-day guarantees.

“Prices are always negotiable here, and that’s something you don’t get at a Sears,” said Kelly Mills, a Silver Valley woman who was making the rounds of Valley pawn shops last week.

“When you’re shopping on a budget and you’ve got teenagers who want guitars and drums, buying something new is secondary,” Mills said.

Mills doesn’t feel embarrassed about doing her Christmas shopping at pawn shops - she feels smart. She does her research at the department stores, she said, then buys the items second-hand at a steep discount.

The diverse mix of bargain hunters and loan seekers makes pawn shops an interesting place this time of year.

Pawnbrokers, said Pawn 1 area manager Jeri Lax-Barbee, want to be upscale for shoppers. They also want to reduce the embarrassment of those who need loans.

“I had to go to a pawn shop myself once,” said Pawn 1 employee Debra Kronich. “I felt so demeaned. I don’t want anyone to walk into our store and have to feel like the dirt beneath your feet.”

Along with the guns and jewelry and CDs, pawnbrokers often get heartbreaking stories.

At Christmas, the tales can be especially sad. Families need a loan to buy their holiday dinner, or fulfill children’s requests to Santa. Or they need $50 so their heat won’t be turned off for Christmas.

Some of the tales are fiction, but many customers do have desperate needs.

“You notice a lot of women bringing in a lot of jewelry,” said Bill Branson, an employee at Shamrock. “A lot of people need a lot more money this time of year.”

Mac Bastine, co-owner of American Armored Pawn Shop on East Sprague, vividly remembers a woman wheeling her 8-year-old daughter’s bike into his shop a few years ago. The woman wanted $40 to get her power turned back on.

Bastine decided it would be better to call the Salvation Army, and see if the charity could help her. In the end, she didn’t need the loan.

“She went home with her bike and daughter and tears in her eyes,” Bastine said.

About a week ago, Kronich waited on a woman desperate to give her three sons SEGA Game Gear for Christmas. The tired-looking woman had just $80 for Christmas gifts. She’d been to several pawn shops already, but none could give her a price she could afford.

Kronich’s gut told her the woman was sincere. She took the $80 and sent the woman home with three Game Gears, six games and all the accessories her sons would need - a purchase worth about $200. “I saw her crying on her way to her car,” Kronich said. “To her, it was everything.”

Pawnbrokers admit, they can’t be everyone’s social worker. In some cases, they can’t even provide a loan. The item must have resale value, something customers don’t always understand.

“I had a lady call in and ask if we took frozen huckleberries on pawn,” Branson said. “I had a guy bring in some jeans that looked like a shop rag. A lady brought in a doily.”

None got a loan.

“Someone brought in a hang glider, and an ultra-light,” Bastine said, “and I got a stuffed elk one time.”

Bastine actually bought the stuffed elk, and later sold it to an Elks club.

“The thing was huge,” he said. “You couldn’t get him through the front door.”

Once, Bastine even let a woman pawn her family Bible.

He gave her $20, even though the holy book had little resale value.

When the lady didn’t come back for it, he wrapped it up and placed it on her front step for Christmas.

She’s now a regular customer.

“We do a lot of good things for a lot of people,” said Bastine, who would like to polish the negative stereotypes about pawn shops. He once believed those stereotypes himself.

“I almost didn’t open a pawn shop,” the Valley man said. “I’d never been in one. I imagined dark, smoke-filled rooms with clandestine things going on.”

In fact, about 85 percent of customers come back for their pawned items. And while hot property is a concern, just a small percentage of pawned items are found to be stolen, sheriff’s detectives said.

Still, eccentric customers do come along.

Branson remembers feeling a bit concerned when a man, wearing a mask and carrying a large sack, stopped in on Halloween day.

He can only wonder what Santa might pawn on Christmas.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 color)