Profit For Some

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30847, 4 September 1965, Page 12

Profit For Some

ONE of New York’s most exclusive pawnshops is publicly seeking customers in an unusual, though possibly fertile, field among the nervous traders and speculators on the gyrating New York stock market.

In the wake of plummeting prices on the New York Stock Exchange, the discreetly elegant shop of Paul Kaskel and Sons, just off Fifth avenue, has begun equally discreet advertising in the “Wall Street Journal.”

Nestled among offerings of more usual sources of capital for business purposes, the advertisement held out to victims of the market’s swings, the prospect of ready cash for their wives’ diamonds, jewellery and mink, available in an atmosphere far removed from that of the usual pawnbroking transaction. Kaskel is, indeed, a far cry from the cluttered pawnshops

in the run-down areas on Eighth and Ninth avenues. It has no three-ball symbols on its marquee Its windows contain not battered guitars and ancient cameras but neatly - displayed diamond rings and bracelets. Like the expensive department stores on Fifth avenue its clients include society figures, diplomats, politicians and even visiting royalty, as well as the mistresses of the rich and expensive call-girls. Most are temporarily, some permanently, impoverished. A special side-door is thoughtfully provided for those who do not care to advertise their plight. RollsRoyces can usually be found parked a block away. Richard Kaskel, the 42-year-old manager, knows that most stock market speculators rely heavily on credit and are likely to have over-extended themselves during the current market slump. But, he says, most of the customers • who provide him with a 2,500,000-dollar a year business, are people who merely want to “live it up more excessively.”