Pawn shops

When I went to Champaign to study for a doctorate, I found I needed a few tools, and there were a couple of pawn shops nearby. One offered a cheap socket set. I still have it, though the common sizes wore out and were replaced by Craftsman sockets when I could afford them. The other shop had a “Going out of business” sign outside, which it still wore when I got my degree years later. I visited both from time to time, but rarely saw anything I cared to spend my scarce dollars for.

It wasn’t until later that I wondered how the second shop managed to make any money—perhaps it was the jewelry, or perhaps something not quite legal; but the merchandise I noticed didn’t move quickly.

Once I had a family of my own (and wasn’t using stacked boxes as a dresser anymore) I started to get a more personal understanding of the sometime need for funds and lack of need for an old TV. I never pawned anything myself, but I started to see the shops as a window into the culture and what was really going on at the bottom rungs in town, and developed a little curiosity about them. I think regular visits would tell something interesting about the changes in a town, and there’s a local flavor to them. The shop I visited in Montana was, as you might expect, more stocked with horse gear and guns than the Illinois shop.

A chain opened in Madison recently, and I decided to pay a visit. The parking lot was crowded, the pawn windows were busy, and there was a huge store to go with it.

It has a huge selection of cheap CDs and DVDs, and I shudder at how little the previous owners must have gotten—10 cents on the dollar or less. Since this is a chain, they doubtless ship excess merchandise from place to place and I can’t draw clean conclusions about Madison. But one aisle was grim: almost all of it was well-used pneumatic nailers, with a few pneumatic wrenches and other items of power construction gear.