Pawnshops

In between the trendy decoration shops and smart cafes in the Marais quarter, there is old "auntie." That would be Credit Municipal of Paris, the pawnshop owned and operated by this city since 1777 where Auguste Rodin put up pieces of his sculptures to pay for new tools and Claude Monet had a friend buy back his late wife's beloved medallion so she could wear it in her casket.

Teri Zunick rapped on the window of a downtown pawnshop. She was wilting in 113-degree heat, and clutching the gold bracelet she needed to hock so her electricity would stay on. Zunick, 45, is also struggling to pay her mortgage and fill up her $60-a-tank SUV. She has stopped getting her pool professionally cleaned. She plans to cancel her cable subscription.

IN certain ZIP Codes, hocking a pair of Tiffany diamond studs is as hush-hush as a tummy tuck. That's certainly the case at the Beverly Loan Co., where the process couldn't be more discreet and dignified. No skittish neon signs or grimy display cases here. Instead, there's a Picasso in the waiting area and bottled water to help wash away the bitter taste of the current economy.

Reggie Pendleton was laid off last week and needed money to buy his wife and two young children Christmas gifts. So he turned to an increasingly popular option in this deepening recession -- a pawnshop. On Tuesday, the former technology firm recruiter walked into Collateral Lender Inc. in Beverly Hills clutching a stainless-steel Rolex he had bought in better times for $3,300. After an inspection by one of the store's appraisers, Pendleton was offered a $400 loan.

In the fluorescent-lighted dens of despair called pawnshops, bad luck is a commodity as casual as an aging cellphone or a grandmother's ring, held up for inspection, the sellers holding their breath to see what it's all worth. You won't find Russia's petro-rich here, but you will find plenty of people who wouldn't have been caught peddling heirlooms to a pawnshop a year ago -- people too prideful to say they've been ejected, at least temporarily, from the middle class.

As soon as Michael Thomas saw the Samsung camcorder, he knew it was his. To prove it, he told a detective what was on the tape before pushing the play button. Moments later, a smile parting his lips, he saw a video of his toddler son, also named Michael, cautiously edging toward a pool for his first swimming lesson. Burglars broke into his Encino apartment in November, he said, and took the video camera, a stereo system, a family coin collection -- and his son's piggy bank.

Aurora Rico Torres is hosting a big holiday party this week, part of a nine-day celebration leading up to Christmas. Before buying the \o7pozole\f7, punch and pinatas, she took part in another Mexican tradition: pawning. On a recent afternoon, the young homemaker went to El Nacional Monte de Piedad\o7, \f7or\o7 \f7National Mountain of Pity pawnshop, to hock her $250 diamond bracelet and gold earrings to help fund the celebration.

County officials attempted to identify a substance Thursday that made workers at a pawnshop ill and forced closure of a major street while authorities investigated the incident. Employees at AAA Pawn & Jewelry in the 5500 block of Sepulveda Boulevard called emergency services at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday complaining of nausea and dizziness, said Culver City spokeswoman Randi Joseph. The illnesses were caused by breathing fumes from an oily liquid on the ground near the shop's entrance.

Air conditioners given to the poor during a late-summer heat wave have been turning up at Florida pawnshops now that the weather has eased, the Tampa Tribune said Wednesday. "Obviously they violated the principle of the program, but it wasn't illegal," Tampa police spokesman Steve Cole said. The $300 air conditioners were distributed under a federally funded emergency program as September heat waves took their toll on the poor and disabled nationwide.

For four months, Rina Ito lusted after a black, bamboo-handled Gucci bag. But the $820 status symbol was way out of reach for a 20-year-old college student working part time at a bar. So Ito was ecstatic when she found the handbag in near-perfect condition at a Tokyo pawn shop. At a mere $484, it was a steal. In the high-rolling 1980s, when Japan became a top consumer of luxury brand names, buying somebody's old purse at a pawn shop was not just impossible, but unthinkable.