Pawnbroker

A pawnbroker is an individual or business (pawnshop or pawn shop) that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as collateral.

While many items can be pawned, pawnshops typically accept jewelry, musical instruments, home audio equipment, computers, video game systems, coins, gold, silver, televisions, cameras, power tools, firearms, and other relatively valuable items as collateral.

If the loan is not paid (or extended, if applicable) within the time period, the pawned item will be offered for sale to other customers by the pawnbroker.

The business model existed 1,500 years ago in Buddhist monasteries, no different from today, strictly regulated through the ages by Imperial or other authorities.

In spite of early Roman Catholic Church prohibitions against charging interest on loans, there is some evidence that the Franciscans were permitted to begin the practice as an aid to the poor.

In 1450, Barnaba Manassei, a Franciscan friar, began the Monte di Pietà movement in Perugia, Italy.

It was established between 1774 and 1777 by Pedro Romero de Terreros as part of a movement to provide interest-free or low-interest loans to the poor.

These laws often require that the pawnbroker establish positive identification of the seller through photo identification (such as a driver's license or government-issued identity document), as well as a holding period placed on an item purchased by a pawnbroker (to allow time for local law enforcement authorities to track stolen items).

Many police departments advise burglary or robbery victims to visit local pawnshops to see if they can locate stolen items.

To assess value of different items, pawnbrokers use guidebooks ("blue books"), catalogs, Internet search engines, and their own experience.

Determining if the customer is likely to return to reclaim an item is a subjective decision, and the pawnshop owner may take many factors into account.

Despite this protection, the cost for the customer to borrow money this way will be high, and if they cannot redeem the collateral it would in many cases be better to sell the goods directly.

This form of pawnbroking works like a traditional pawn loan, however, these stores only accept vehicles as security.

Upscale pawnshops began to appear in the early 20th century, often referred to as "loan offices", since the term "pawn shop" had a very negative historical reputation at this point.

These objects can include wine collections, jewelry, large diamonds, fine art, cars, and unique memorabilia.

Throughout the Middle Ages, coats of arms bore three balls, orbs, plates, discs, coins and more as symbols of monetary success.

The symbol has also been attributed to the story of Nicholas giving a poor man's three daughters each a bag of gold so they could get married.

[13] In Hong Kong the practice follows the Chinese tradition, and the counter of the shop is typically higher than the average person for security.

The symbol of a pawn shop in Hong Kong is a bat holding a coin (Chinese: 蝠鼠吊金錢, Cantonese: fūk syú diu gām chín).

A valid and licensed pawnshop in Malaysia must always declare itself as a "pajak gadai" or a pawn shop for its company registration.

It must also fulfill the requirement of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government that the pawn counter be no higher than four feet and bulletproof, and have stainless-steel counters/doors, strong rooms with automatic locks and safes, CCTV, alarms and pawnbroker insurance.

In the Philippines, pawnshops are generally privately owned businesses regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

In India, the Marwari Jain community pioneered the pawnbroking business, but today others are involved; the work is done by many agents called "saudagar".

In Indonesia, there is a state-owned company called Pegadaian which provides a range of conventional and Sharia-compliant pawnbroking services across the archipelago.