Published: August 07, 2008 09:33 am         

Hard times reflect rise in pawn sales

Chelsea L. McGowan

Staff Writer

When economic fluctuations hit hard, many people don’t have anywhere to turn for extra cash. Now that electric bills are stretching some Weatherford citizens past their breaking points, many are turning to an ancient business model to help weather the storm.

“Pawning, the idea of a trade transaction, is ancient,” said Bobby Whitehead, owner of Uncle Joe’s Pawn Shop. “This is something that’s been around since biblical times.”

Whitehead said in the last three months, he’s seen an influx of middle and upper-middle class customers seeking to broker deals for extra cash.

“Some customers are used to working with us, have been doing it for a long time,” he said. “We have others now that have never made any kind of pawn transaction in their lives. But if you’re faced with a doubled or tripled utility bill, you have to look different places for income.”

Other area pawn stores, however, aren’t seeing any recent increase at all in their business.

“We’ve actually seen quite a decrease in walk-ins and sales,” said J.R. Hill, co-owner of Weatherford Pawn. “I saw the quality of items for sale go down for a while, and now it looks to me like people are just running out of things to sell.”

For Whitehead, a second generation pawn broker, the upswing in transactions isn’t necessarily great news.

“We are seeing more business, but the whole situation is quite disheartening,” he said. “People are having to choose whether they’re going to feed their families, pay their rent or pay their electric bills. These are very hard choices, and there’s a lot of anger in this town because of it.”

Regardless of the change in his customer base, Whitehead said his store is still an outlet for the same variety of pawn shop items.

“We see a lot of jewelry, lots of tools and electronics,” he said. “I don’t want people to think there’s anything illegal going on here, though. We made 8,000 transactions last year, and only had eight police holds. This is an absolutely valid way for people to get extra cash if they need it, and we try to keep up with the market as well as we can, especially in these times.”

Hill said with his business taking a hit just like the economy, he wonders when things will start to look up.

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said. “I don’t know when this situation is going to get better. But I’ve been doing this for four years and haven’t seen a drought like this in that whole time.”

     

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.