PAWNBROKING - JUST ANOTHER WAY OF BORROWING MONEY

While the origins of pawnbroking can be traced back over 3,000 years to the Chinese, the industry as we know it today dates back to fifteenth Century Italy when the noble Medici family was a dominant financial power.

When the Medici family split in two, one half became bankers and the other, pawnbrokers. The pawnbrokers took with them half the family crest, which incorporated the now instantly recognisable sign of the pawnbroker - the three spheres. It should come as no surprise that the origins of banking and pawnbroking are so closely entwined, after all pawnbroking is simply another form of banking.

In the latter stages of the nineteenth and early twentieth Century there were more pawnshops than public houses in Britain, lending money on anything from wedding rings to father's "Sunday best" suit.

The upsurge in the industry's fortune came during the 1980's credit boom and has continued into the millennium with customers preferring this convenient form of High Street borrowing.

What is a "Pledge?"