Quote:

I would agree to a certain extent, for the non-distressed seller eBay is the way to go. But lets say you're overdrawn on your bank account and need the money immediately? Using Ebay/Paypal, the money will be deposited in your bank account. Also Ebay takes a few days to run an auction. I think these pawn shops cater to a certain type of client.

And also, don't forget they're not actually "buying" from you, they are lending to you (at ridiculous rates I might add). A lot of the people who use pawn shops want their items back once they have the cash.

Oh and in case anyone cares, they are closed Sundays... I found out the hard way, but Burger King was open...!

pawn shops are a dying breed - ebay has proven to be a way of getting true market value !

This is definitely going to be growing trend.

I've been looking around my apartment and collecting stuff for a stoop sale. It may not make me big bucks, but it'll help!!

On a side note-- anyone know a reputable place to sell jewelry? I don't have expensive stuff, but I'd like to get fair-market value for some rings.

Anyone ever been here? NY Times Story



Tapping a Pawnbroker?s Power When All Else Fails
By KEVIN COYNE

Jersey City

HERMAN RIGGSBEE lives just off Montgomery Street, halfway between the soaring glass towers of finance on the waterfront and a squatter, older citadel of capitalism up the hill on McGinley Square. When he needed a loan the other day, he knew which way to turn.

He had a ring, a medallion and two chains in his pocket as he pushed through the oak-framed front door of H. Schoenberg, pawnbrokers since 1895. ?I just need a little bit to pay on a bill? from BP, he said, for the credit card he uses to put gasoline in his 1999 Chevy Corsica. ?I fell behind, and I don?t like falling behind. I like to keep up so I don?t get hit with the interest.?

Down by the river, at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs and scores of other jittery firms, the engines of the financial system were seizing up, as balky as the 1989 Plymouth Voyager Mr. Riggsbee recently ditched. But credit was still flowing at H. Schoenberg, because here the loans are anchored by something whose value has proved far more lasting and tangible than the exotic, incomprehensible securities peddled in sleeker quarters elsewhere.

?Gold,? said Manny Vidal, 45, the owner with his wife, Mysia. He stood behind a long, glass-topped display case filled with rings, bracelets, watches, brooches and sundry adornments that once belonged to other people who had also fallen behind. ?Gold is always.?

The cycle is eternal. A bill arrives, a check doesn?t, a jewelry box is rummaged through, a necklace that hasn?t been worn lately is converted into cash. Most of Mr. Vidal?s customers are looking for small loans for a few months, like Mr. Riggsbee, who needed $60. The necklace goes into a vault, you get your money and a pawn ticket, and you come in each month to pay 3.7 percent interest on your loan. When you pay off the loan ? four months is the usual limit ? you get the necklace back, to wear again, or to bring back another day when another bill arrives. If you don?t pay the loan back, and about half the shop?s customers don?t, Mr. Vidal can put the necklace in the display case for sale.

?They call us the priest sometimes,? Mr. Vidal said, pinching closed the top button of his shirt like a Roman collar. ?You get to know their life story. You listen to them and you give them respect. They?re here because they need money and they?re having a problem and they want to vent, so you let them vent. It helps them out.?

Mr. Riggsbee, 48, took his $60 to pay his gasoline bill, planning to return to redeem his ticket for his gold ? as he always has in the several years he has been a regular customer, Mr. Vidal said ? when his next disability check arrived, or he made a few extra dollars fixing somebody?s car. ?I don?t know what I?d do without you,? he said as he left.

Mirna Fernandez, 40, arrived not with gold, but with some cash to pay the interest on two loans for the jewelry she had pawned in the previous months: one for $60 and one for $100. ?I just needed to have some money for the house, for food,? said Ms. Fernandez, who has a disabled husband and a 9-year-old son, and who has been looking unsuccessfully for work. ?I?m basically a secretary, but right now, anything goes. Without this, I?m choked.?

Mr. Vidal worked at the toy store next door before he was hired 20 years ago by the pawnshop?s owner, Paul Schoenberg, to whom he had endeared himself by shoveling snow from in front of both storefronts without being asked. He bought the business six years ago ? from the old sign painted high on the brick wall outside to the racks in the back for the suits that men would redeem on Saturday, wear to church on Sunday, and then pawn again on Monday. Six days a week, he and Ms. Vidal are behind the counter.

?Oh, thank you, George,? Ms. Vidal said when George DeFeis arrived in his motorized scooter and presented her with a bag of the salted nuts he knows she likes.

As the price of gold has spiked in the last year, more customers have started selling jewelry rather than pawning it, but Mr. DeFeis has resisted. ?Since my mother died in June, I?ve been bringing her jewelry back and forth,? said Mr. DeFeis, 65, who worked as a pastry chef on cruise ships and at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan before he was disabled three years ago by rheumatoid arthritis in his hips. ?When I?m short and I can?t meet the rent, because I?m on a fixed income, sometimes I say, ?Manny, can you help me out here?? ?

He had just gotten his Social Security check and he was paying the interest on several loans, secured by a diamond pendant, an amethyst bracelet and a topaz wristwatch, none of which he?s ready to part with yet.

?And life goes on,? Ms. Vidal said after she handed him his change and he rolled back out the door, until next month.

E-mail: jersey@nytimes.com