It’s been a busy month. Lending and gold buying have been at record levels over the last few months however retail still remains strong with Valentines Day adding a nice boost to the sales figures. Pawnbroking is just another form of ‘Asset Lending’, similar to a mortgage on a house where the loan is secured against the value of the property owned. The difference with a pawnbroking loan is the length of the loan period which is typically upto 7 months and the fact that the goods or asset is stored in our vaults, usually gold, acts as the security against the loan. We often lend £1000-£10,000 on luxury watches and fine jewellery to help some of our clients meet their immediate cash flow needs. However our more typical ‘every day’ loan is often just £100 – £500 and it allows our customers to meet their everyday cash flow needs when they need it most.
My family have been in the pawnbroking and jewellery industry since 1840. We have records dating back to 1935 when the typical pledge was in pounds shillings and pence and the items pawned were articles of clothing such as ‘pit pants’, hob nail boots and even ladies ‘hosiery’!
It was very rare to see a loan over £10 in old money. That would be worth about £500 today and thats because people didn’t own the same value of assets in those days, in fact gold was a rarity.
One customer was recently looking through the old pledge books on display in our Seacroft store and remembered her mum using a pawnbroker regularly to pledge her gold wedding ring when she was a child. She would always get it back after a few weeks and it was a valuable service to her family then, as it still is today. Several customers in stores like Pontefract, Seacroft and Batley have mentioned that they remembered my father and grandfather helping their families during tough times like the miners strike and they are still appreciative of the help they received that was essential for getting them through those tough times.
Not everyone needs a loan though and some customers prefer to sell their gold especially with the gold price being stronger of late and as a result we have been buying record amounts. March and April are when personal debt typically hit their peak with the end of the tax year, credit card bills still looming from Christmas and the booking of summer holidays with deposits needing to be paid. If that wasn’t enough, we then have our energy bills to pay for!
In fact recent research showed that 27% of the public would consider using a pawnbroker if they better understood how the process works.
It’s so simple really – Pawnbroking is a secured loan; you leave your item – a gold ring for example, with the pawnbroker for up to 7 months and can redeem it, (collect it), at any time by paying back the loan and interest due at that point.
If you cannot repay the loan, the pawnbroker will sell your goods to repay the debt and that is the end of the matter although we really do our very best to try and avoid customers losing their valuables. If any extra profit is made after costs of the loan, interest and admin has been paid, then it goes back to you, the original customer!
Regulated by the FCA, the whole process is beautifully simple and completely transparent providing instant cash to many thousands of people when they really need it most.
So, if you are looking for a little extra help with the high cost of living and soaring energy bills, then visit Christopher Brown Jewellers in Seacroft, Shipley, York and Pontefract or Brown and Gold in Batley. You will be pleasantly surprised at just how simple it is to get the financial help you need when you need it most!
Chris Brown
