UNCLE AND HIS THREE GOLD BALLS

Grey River Argus, 19 May 1947, Page 2

UNCLE AND HIS THREE GOLD BALLS

The pawnbrokers seem to be dying out, and second-hand dealers have replaced them, paying in cash instead of loans. Pawnbroking is the business of lending ..money on the security of valuables taken in pledge. In New Zealand pawnbrokers are governed by the Pawnbrokers Act, ISOS, which replaces similar Acts passed last century. There are interesting clauses controlling their activities. Licences are obtained from the Magistrate’s Court after special application is made and after the Magistrate is satisfied as to the character of the applicant. The licence remains in force for a year, and an annual fee of £lO is payable. The name of the pawnbroker and the words “Licensed Pawnbroker” must be painted in letters at least two inches long above the door of the shop. Rates of interest are limited. For each 2s 6d advanced as a loan 2d interest per month is charged up to a £lO loan. Beyond that amount interest not exceeding 50 per cent, per annum shall be charged. Full particulars regarding any transaction must be recorded —and they are, incidentally, of considerable help to the police on occasions when tracing articles stolen and sold to a dealer by a criminal. No articles pledged can be sold before the expiry of three months in the case of wearing apparel and six months in any other case. Any article forfeited on which ■any sum above 5s has been lent shall be sold by public auction. If the article is sold for more than the sum advanced, plus interest due at the time of sale, the pledger may claim within twelve months cf the date of sale any such surplus. If it is sold for less, the dealer has a common law right to seek recovery of the deficit from the pledger.

There are restrictions on the hours of business, and a dealer is forbidden to accept pledges from anyone under the age of fourteen years or from a person apparently intoxicated. Although there are only four pawnbrokers in Wellington to-day there are over 200 second-hand dealers, who buy articles offered to him. Not all are in business solely as se-cond-hand dealers; many commercial firms take out a licence for an annual fee of ss, so that they can accept articles as “trade-ins” when selling new products.

Jewellers also take out licences that they might purchase secondhand rings or other jewellery. Wellington’s pawnbrokers are also sec-ond-hand dealers, and it is that part of their business which provides the greater number of their customers. Strangely, there never were many pawnbrokers in the city, even in the depression years. Only three were li--ensed in 1932, out of a Dominion total of 15. In 1939 there were five. A depression has just as bad an -'fleet on pawnbroking as on other businesses, according to one dealer. If people had little money they preerred to sell their property out•’ight, to second-hand dealers or through auction rooms, rather than accept loans which had to be repaid zith the added burden of interesl, if the pledges were to be redeemed. The dealers have had their regular customers, who pledged their typewriters or jewellery and redeemed them at the end of the month, invariably wi/h the remark, “Well, good-bye, I hope I don’t see you again.” Trade was good during the war when the Americans were in Wellington. They brought, particularly, -’psakes and curios and jeweller with which most. dealers’ shops are

filled. The Americans, as are most other people, were entranced by the wide variety of goods offered—suitcases, gramophones, jewellery, silverware, cameras, binoculars —far more varied indeed, as any of'the windows to-day will show, than any department store. The only items missing, indeed are the three golden balls. Pawnbroking goes back to the earliest ages of the world, since the business of lending money on portable security is one of the most ancient of human occupations. The Chinese knew the pawnshops 3000 years ago; both Rome and Greece were as familiar with the operation of pawning as the modern poor the world over. The Jews have been very largely indentified with pawnbroking. The pledge system arose in Italy, where an early form of pawnbroking 's recorded as far back as 1198. In the following century the system spread to France, where it was developed until the pawnshop there be:ame part of the governmental system.

Men died in France as recently as ’933, because of a scandal in the operation of the municipal pawn--hops. Stavisky’s name will never be "orgotten. He was the head of the nunipical pawnshop at Bayonne. It was no furtive shop, clustered with

tie items of little intrinsic worth, ut a huge .organisation. From the values pawned with him Stavisky raised huge loans and with the money founded great companies.

He became one of the most powerful figures behind the financial scene in France.

Then in 1933 a French newspaperexposed him and started a great cam"- ■ paign against him. Suddenly the '. whole country erupted from the cor- j ruption revealed. France had been 1 struggling desperately through the world depression; the people were impoverished by taxation. Stavisky’s arrest was ordered, but he committed suicide. In the days that followed it was found that many were in his pay. Several, members of Parliament shot themselves; judges and bankers, disappeared. A whole political party( the Radical Socialists. j was in Stavisky’s pay. |