History in Everything—Even Pawnshops
Condensed from The Century Magazine (February, '29)
Avery Strakosch
Years ago, I had known "Uncle" Moe when he owned a pawnshop on Eighth Avenue in New York City. Last spring, while making a walking tour of the Riviera, I found him living, under an assumed name, in a beautiful villa in an enchanting town just over the Italian border.
"You must never divulge my secret in San Remo, that I was once a pawnbroker!" he began. "It is an honorable business, but alas, it will always have a dishonorable name!
"I have known many pawnbrokers who were fine men. There was my grandfather and my father — both honest to a fault. I, myself? My career is an open book! And yet — well, my own children have no idea their father was a pawnbroker! For years, on the side, I traded in real estate — and as far as they know, my father and grandfather did likewise. I wouldn't have them know the truth. I sent them abroad to school. I refused to see them become social pariahs!
"Pawnbrokers all hate their business. There isn't one of them who would stay in the business if he knew how to do anything else that would bring him the same income. As the pawn brokerage business is almost always inherited it's hard to get away from it. It goes from father to son, and more often from uncle to nephew — that's where the pawnbroker got his title, 'Uncle '.
"Do you know how the business started? Here in Italy, two Franciscan monks were the first to start the modern pawnshop. They believed the poor needed material help first and spiritual comfort afterward. All the grateful borrowers flocked to them, and hence arranged their journeys to Paradise through the Franciscan order! Their competitors for souls, the Dominicans, were enraged at what the Franciscans had put over on them! What a picture! One order considering the pawnshop a device of the devil, while the other gave it full benefit of clergy! Savonarola himself finally opened the first Florentine pawnshop, surrounded by Dominican brothers, horror-stricken at the proceedings! Imagine! And best of all the Pope in Rome, an extravagant old fellow, agreeing to it all. What a borrower he was. Nothing of value remained stationary in the Vatican in his day.
"Papal plate, furniture and jewels, anything he could raise money on — there is even a record of his pawning statues of the Twelve Apostles!
"My people did not originate the business, as popularly supposed. But the Jews were as bad as the Christians! Many of them were usurers. People tried to borrow first at the pawnshop because the interest rates were low, but if their collateral was insufficient, they had to go to the usurer. It became easy for the public to associate the pawnbroker and the usurer.
"Few persons realize that a pawnbroker, more than any other person, has to live by the letter of the law. In New York, or in any other American city, before a pawnbroker can get a license, he must furnish the best character references. He must also be a man of established means, for he has to pay a high price for his license, and post a bond of at least $10,000. He must always have several hundred thousand dollars cash at his disposal so he can lend large or small amounts at a moment's notice.
"Before the war, and especially before prohibition, most of our steady customers were among the poor. Those were the days when you could tell it was Monday without looking at the calendar. I can remember when I was a child, the fear I had of the regiments of roistering Irish, soaked in whisky, who crashed my father's pawnshop at the beginning of the week. Saturday, payday, they returned for their belongings. This performance was repeated week in, week out. They borrowed at the rate of three percent a week. Yet, if you had refused them money your shop would have been wrecked. I am against prohibition, but I'm glad it did away with the men and women who would have taken the clothes from their children's backs if they could have found a pawnbroker heartless enough to lend to them on such collateral.
And who will ever forget the panic of 1894? Thousands out of work and hungry. What a friendly place the pawnshop grew to be then. We nearly killed ourselves working on double shift, to keep open night and day. We often advanced money on utterly worthless things so the people could buy food.
"War, prohibition, and fake jewelry were the blows that killed the pawnshop business. The war developed all those entreaties to buy Liberty Bonds on the installment plan. People who had never saved, suddenly began. Saving became a fetish. They kept away from the pawnshop. It was no longer necessary.
"On the other hand, the war brought us new customers. Middle-class businessmen who went overseas with the premonition they wouldn't return. Before they left they pawned everything they had. Thousands didn't come back and the pawnbroker lost both his loan and interest. Of course, he could sell all unredeemed things at the end of 13 months, but one very seldom breaks even on such forced sales.
"The final blow came when the French dressmakers decreed that women should pay large sums for imitation jewels that are worth less than their settings. Fortunately, however, there will always be a certain class of persons who invest in diamonds — the best portable security in the world, quickly negotiable from Cape Town to Shanghai.
"The big diamond owners are in a class by themselves. They are the secret borrowers. A rich woman will seldom admit to her banker that she is so hard up for cash she needs to borrow on her jewelry. She'd rather go to a pawnshop where she is not known, where no questions are asked.
"A prominent woman once brought me a long necklace of blue-white, square-cut diamonds. I loaned her $56,000 on it. She confided to me that she was borrowing this money to help her husband, whose reputation would have been endangered, his business lost, if his associates had known his financial embarrassment. You'd be surprised at the well-known names on many a pawnbroker's book of records.
"I know you think I've painted the pawnbroker as an angel. Well, if he is, it's very often because he has to be. Pawnbrokers have less chance to be dishonest than other men. They are all under municipal supervision. They are under oath to make a written report, on special cards furnished by the police, of every loan they make. A Pawnshop Inspector arrives when least expected, checks up the pawnbroker's books and looks over every item he has taken in. The police have to have confidence in pawnbrokers. They depend upon them to help locate lost or stolen property to the tune, in large cities, of about two hundred thousand dollars a year.
"There are over 5,000 watches and 6,000 pieces of jewelry pawned every day of the week in New York City! In the business districts, the average daily loans are 15 to 16 thousand dollars.
"There are 191 registered pawnbrokers in New York, but the number is growing less each year. You see, the game is no longer worth the name!"
The wind came stronger from the sea. It grew chilly. Uncle Moe called for a wrap. The servant placed one over his shoulders. Uncle Moe sat lost in thought, the old Eighth Avenue look of weariness had returned to his eyes.
