FEATURE: Pawn Kings

Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
January 16, 2009

THE huge sales window on a corner of Queen Street displays a haphazard bazaar of mismatched items, an ad-hoc collection charting a slightly desperate history of consumerism in the Capital.

In one corner stands an orchestra of instruments, ranging from a gold-plated 1970s Gibson Les Paul guitar and a cherry red Rickenbacker bass, to an array of brass that could kit out a miners' band three times over.

Shining over them all is a platinum disc for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, presented to Billboard Magazine in 1977, later auctioned on eBay, then donated to Barnardo's in Portobello, where it was bought five years ago for GBP 100 - and now on sale at Duncanson & Edwards pawnbrokers for GBP 500.

On the back wall, the shelves are stocked floor to ceiling with electrical goods, CDs and DVDs, while the sales counter glimmers with diamonds, silver and gold.

Each item has it's own story to tell, and usually it is desperately sad.

In a sign of the times, the owner Edward Fox points to a large DeWalt circular saw with a price tag of GBP 425. They normally sell for more than GBP 1000 new.

"That's from a building business that went under," he says.

"There's hundreds of other tools out in the shop window, many of them handed in by immigrants who bought them here in the first place. They came in when the EU was opened up because they needed tools to get into the building trade, but now they're all going home because the work has dried up and they've brought them back.

"The price we give varies on an item by item basis. On something like the circular saw we would have given somewhere in the region of GBP 275 (nearly a quarter of the price of buying one new), but there's no set formula.

"Most of the items we sell go for around 50 per cent of the retail price. If you go along to Laing the Jeweller on Frederick Street and see how much a Cartier watch will cost you, we've got one for sale for GBP 5000 which is about half the retail price."

The pawnbroker for years has laboured under the image of the "low, dirty-looking, dusty shop", in the disparaging words of Charles Dickens, but in the last 12 months it has taken a step into the mainstream.

In credit-crunch Britain, where our collective personal debt is now said to top GBP 1 trillion and the banks largese is no longer so forthcoming, the pawnbroker looks to be entering a renaissance.

Britain's oldest pawnbroker Duncanson & Edwards, which is entering its 180th year, has reported a 110 per cent increase in items being pawned in the last year.

"We've seen a lot of new customers," says Mr Fox.

"Like anywhere else we have our regulars, but once people use us for the first time and realise that you can get money plus half a year to decide if you want the goods back they keep using us."

"We deal with people on all budgets here," adds Mr Fox. "The first thing we ask people is how much they are looking to raise. There's no point borrowing GBP 500 when you only need GBP 100, so we set a figure and help them work towards that figure.

"In Edinburgh, we see a lot of Victorian jewellery, and there was the famous call we got last year from a customer enquiring about pawning his Aston Martin.

"He was a banker who had just lost his job and was looking to raise some cash, so he called us two or three times enquiring about it but he never actually came in. He must have found some other way to raise the money."

With around 80 to 85 per cent of people coming back to reclaim their goods, in return for a hefty interest fee, business is good.

"A lot of people are apprehensive about pawning their goods but they're beginning to realise that we're all right," Mr Fox continues. "Some people are upset when they come in so we try to make it as easy as possible.

"Duncanson & Edwards has been going for 179 years so we've been at it a long time and our chief goal is to help people."

At the other end of town, pensioners Eddie and Sally Scott gaze into the window of Duncanson & Edwards' rival chain Harvey & Thomson, in the Newkirkgate Shopping Centre in Leith.

H&T is in the process of expanding, and has just celebrated the opening of its 100th UK store in October last year. H&T's Leith store opened in September.

Eddie, 67, a retired health worker from Moredun, says: "We had to pawn some wedding china over 40 years ago, when Sally and I were first married. I missed the 90 day deadline by one day and I didn't get it back."

Inside, Gary Roskell, manager at H&T Leith, is adamant such a situation would be unthinkable today. "People have this image of us as Dickensian misers out to rob you of your family silver, but we're not like that now. The bottom line is we're not after your goods, we're out to help you and in 80 per cent of our cases the customers claim their items back.

"There's a few times we've been asked to hold on to items for a few days past the deadline and we have no problem with that and we always send out a letter around the fifth month to remind people.

"I've been in this business 15 years and we get all walks of life through the doors. The majority are from the lower end of the social scale but we do get quite a few high-end customers.

"Pawnbrokers are good to use for a couple of months. As the months go on I admit it can be expensive but for a short term loan we're better than the banks because very few banks offer loans of a couple of hundred pounds."

Prospective customers Eddie and Sally agree. "People just throw money and goods away today," says Eddie.

"We're living in hard times, but looking in the pawnbrokers' window today you know that there are a few broken dreams and promises in there."

VARIED CLIENTELE

THEY have long enjoyed the reputation of being the "poor man's lender", who the less well off turn to when the bank won't listen.

But the clientele at the pawnbrokers chain Harvey & Thomson, which has two branches in Edinburgh - in Leith's Newkirkgate Shopping Centre and on Lauriston Place - and one in Livingston, is more varied than that image suggests.

While most of H&T's customers are categorised as social class D and E, comprising semi and unskilled workers and the unemployed, a respectable 12 per cent come from the affluent and socially mobile A and B social groups.

The majority of its customers are 26 to 45 years of age, with around 19 per cent under 25 and ten per cent over 55, and the gender split is 60:40 in favour of men.

While the company's research suggests that more than a quarter of H&T customers do not have a bank account, almost half have Internet access at home.

H&T offers loans of between GBP 5 and GBP 25,000, with a cumulative eight per cent charge per month for the retention of items.