Pawn shops thriving in Myrtle Beach area

Residents coping with job losses, home foreclosures and dwindling returns on investments in the grinding nationwide economic downturn have increasingly turned to pawn shops for cash, according to spot checks of Grand Strand firms.

Cash-strapped customers have been selling or pawning once-prized luxury items such as expensive Rolex watches, heirloom sterling silver pieces and other symbols of formerly upscale lifestyles to stay afloat until they find new jobs or resolve the financial crunches that have beset them, pawn shop managers said.

High on the list of assets they have turned to are damaged jewelry or rings, and necklaces and bracelets they no longer wear or want. In a market where junk gold is bringing up to $1,350 an ounce, they can sell cast-offs to help pay the monthly bills.

As a result, once middle- and upper-economic class customers whose financial woes now prevent them from securing bank loans to help them over the hump are turning to pawn shops for relief.

"We have certainly seen a lot of new customers who can no longer get an equity or a signature loan," said Mike Bond, general manager of the Money Man firm that has 12 stores from Charleston to Georgetown. Bond said the popularity of television shows such as the History Channel's "Pawn Stars" have helped people realize that firms such as Money Man are available to them.

Bond was a pawnbroker before advancing to general manager of a dozen stores and watching the image of pawn firms change from an avenue used mostly by the perpetually down-and-out to a resource for formerly affluent customers.

"It's good to be able to help people who have nowhere else to go," he said.

While many customers are bringing in scrap gold jewelry to sell because of the increased market value of the metal, others are seeking loans on assets such as their grandmother's wedding ring or other items with sentimental value, said Richard Cundiff, general manager of Dick's Pawn Shop in Surfside Beach.

"We have folks who don't want to give up those items and can come up with a monthly payment to keep their loan going and buy themselves some time without having to lose it," Cundiff said.

But customers willing to part with unique items produce an interesting array of either forfeited or purchased merchandise the firm offers for resale, he said.

"We have had collectible banjos that were made during the 1920s, vintage Gibson and Martin guitars, and a set of Klipsh brand theater-style speakers from the 1980s turn up," he said.

Finding a buyer for the Klipsh speakers required some research and listing them on the Internet, Cundiff said. After posting them on the eBay auction site, all the bidders were from the Far East where they were much in demand.

"Someone in Vietnam bought them," he said, "and then paid $4,000 to have them shipped from here to California and then to Vietnam. Who would ever have known they were so well known and in demand over there?"

Other vintage merchandise has included "some pretty neat things. We've taken in Civil War weaponry, for instance, and had several items like firearms that went back to the Revolutionary War," he said.

Sometimes the back story of items that find their way into the Surfside Beach store's jewelry department is as interesting as the item, said Sarah Petty, a sales associate for the past eight years. The department has used and new jewelry ranging in price from $25 to thousands of dollars - like a Submariner Rolex watch with a sale price of $14,000.

Petty said a woman who was visiting friends in the area several years ago brought in a bag filled with gold and diamond jewelry, placed it on the counter, said she no longer wanted the items and offered them for sale.

It turned out she had been the girlfriend of a man who showered her with gold and diamonds after winning more than $100 million in a nationwide lottery. When the relationship ended, she no longer wanted the bounty, sold most of it to the firm and traded some for pieces that carried no reminders of the break-up, Petty said.

In Conway, Baker's Pawn Shop owner J.W. Baker, his wife Angelee and son Randy have become known as the local "Pawn Stars," Randy Baker said.

J.W. Baker, 72, launched the firm 20 years ago after retiring from 33 years as a brick mason who helped construct dozens of Myrtle Beach hotels and motels, his son said. After serving 16 years as a computer expert for Coastal Federal Bank that eventually merged BB&T, Randy Baker joined his father in the business some three years ago.

It's been a fascinating venture, Randy Baker said.

"You never know what's going to walk in through the door," he said. "One lady came in with an old gun that she was willing to sell for maybe $50 or $75.

"She had inherited her great-great grandfather's house and was having some remodeling work done on it. When a heating and air-conditioning worker was moving a second-floor duct, a sock containing something heavy fell out and hit him. The gun was inside the sock."

Recognizing inscriptions on the gun as German, Baker turned to the Internet to research its origin.

After documenting that the weapon dated to World War I, he told the woman it was a collector's item worth $1,500. And because it was in its original holster, that increased the value by another $1,500.

"She decided to neither sell or pawn it and took it back home," he said.

He recalled another customer who brought in a vintage Les Paul guitar in a case that looked as new as the day it was purchased.

"I could have bought it inexpensively, but after research told the owner it was worth $1,600. The owner took a small loan on it instead of selling it then paid the loan off. From time to time, the guitar has come back when the owner needed extra money to get him through a financial situation."

Jimmy Stroupe, manager of Little River Pawn, said the "Pawn Stars" TV show has "helped the image of pawnbrokers and what we do."

The downturn in the economy has brought in lots of people from surrounding golf course communities who want to sell scrap gold to take advantages of the market prices and customers looking for merchandise that others have had to relinquish.

Stroupe said about half the items available for resale at the store come from outright purchases while the other half come from merchandise that customers pawned but failed to redeem.

Though scrap gold is a hot item for purchase, customers also have turned to sterling silver as a source of ready cash as the market price for silver also has soared.

"We're probably averaging buying one full sterling silver service set a week," he said. "It is a shame that the old sterling services will be melted down, but sometimes that's what it takes to get the customer through."

Stroupe said the financial plight many customers find themselves in stemmed from taking advantage of the easy credit that was available for the past two decades.

"Some stood in lines to get the new electronic game systems for $700 when they first came out and now have to pawn or sell that game because they're no longer making enough money to make ends meet," he said.

"We hope the same as everybody else that the economy is going to turn around. Hopefully, next year, things will pick back up."