The pawn industry is one of the oldest means of borrowing money on the planet, in one form or another pawn shops have been around since the early history of Europe, and even before that, people used similar methods of trading to free up cash to fund their lives.
Despite the fact that many people use pawn shops each year around the world, there is still some misunderstanding of exactly how a pawn loan works, and the type of items that can be borrowed against.
What can I borrow money against at a Pawn Shop?
In most cases, a pawn shop will allow you to borrow money against practically any item provided that it can be stored in our shop, and that it is worth more than the amount that you want to borrow. For convenience, most people borrow against items such as jewelry that are convenient to store, and carry around, and which are also comparatively valuable given their size.
How Do Pawn Shops Value Items?
We base the amount we value goods at based on the retail value that they have. For niche items where the price isn’t immediately obvious based on other stores in the area we’ll often use online auction sites such as Ebay to get an understanding of what the real world value of an item is.
At Hat City Pawn we pride ourselves on providing the best value to our customers and will never be undervalued compared to a local pawn shop or gold buyer.
How Much Can I Borrow from a Pawn Shop?
The amount that you can borrow as a pawn loan against a particular item will always be related to the value of that item. We won’t lend you more than the value of the goods that you bring to us.
How Long Can I borrow Money For?
A typical pawn loan is for 30 days. we understand that in some cases you may need to borrow for longer than this, and under certain circumstances we will offer an extension to the terms of the loan, however there will usually be a fee associated with this.
What about if I can’t pay back the loan?
The beauty of a pawn loan is that we’ve based the amount you borrow on the value of the item at re-sale. If you decide that you’re unable to buy back the item, we will simply add it to our stock in the store, and sell it to a customer in order to recover the money.
Are my Goods safe?
Pawn shops will never sell an item to another customer unless it has been either sold to them or a loan has not been repaid and ownership has transferred to the store. While an item is held as collateral for a loan it cannot be sold, and is stored securely to ensure that it can be returned to the original owner when the loan is repaid.