They got his number, and his, too

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Kamaaina Loan blog has often pointed out how stupid a crook has to be to fence stuff at a pawn shop. Here’s an example

A stolen vase

A stolen vase

from Illinois that’s a little bit off the beaten path: Police busted two guys for stealing 100 bronze vases from cemeteries. That’s about $50,000 retail value of vases, though much less as scrap, which is what the crooks sold them for.

The buyer was a scrap yard, not a pawn shop, but in that jurisdiction both types of business are covered by similar reporting rules. (Same with Hawaii, although scrap metal dealers have their own ordinance.) In any event, the outcome was the same: a routine check by police turned up suspicious items, and from there it was a simple matter to get full identification of the sellers.

Harl said that it is not uncommon for scrap yards to turn away customers who are selling likely stolen goods. In terms of the vases, he said employees might not have been aware of what they were. Harl said it is illegal for a scrap yard to knowingly accept anything taken from a cemetery.

“A lot of these (thieves) will come up with a legitimate story before going to sell them,” Harl said. “This isn’t their first time around the block. If scrap dealers get suspicious of everybody, they won’t be in business for very long. They are in business to do business, and not necessarily to help us out.”

But, in doing their due diligence, and following with ordinance guideline, the scrap yards and pawn shops are helping out in a big way.

“The ordinance is stringent, and effective and something that allows us to keep close tabs on items being accepted by various dealers in the city,” Aurora City Spokesman Dan Ferrelli said.

Bronze memorial vases turn up in odd places sometimes. We saw an urn for ashes at a “Storage Wars”-type auction once. It was empty.

Somebody offering 100 ought to be enough to make any buyer curious, but the story makes it sound as if the thieves fed them into the stream of commerce a few at a time, spread over two counties.

Probably thought they were being clever, but you’d think if they were even a little bit smart, they’d have started having doubts after being asked the third or fourth time for their fingerprints.

Pawn shop busts ring thieves

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From New Mexico, a story about how an alert pawnbroker used a tip from a savvy theft victim to catch two thieves.

Reason to celebrate

Reason to celebrate

It started when a woman advertised on Craigslist that she wanted to sell her wedding ring for $6,000.

OK, not too savvy to start with. At our Maui pawn shop, we cringe when we see ads that, in effect, tell bad guys: “I have something valuable, come on over and take it from me.” There was a notorious Florida case where  Craigslist seller with a boat was lured to a secluded location and murdered. In the New Mexico case, the woman was not hurt. When she handed the ring to the robbers, they ran.

But at least she had a digital file photograph of her ring, and she was smart enough to email it to every pawn shop in town.

On Maui, she could have used Kamaaina Loan’s mystolengoods.com to post her loss, not only to us, but for the police to see. (The New Mexico story does not say, but the woman should also have reported her loss to local police. Probably she did.)

Then she got lucky. The robbers brought the ring to a pawn shop, and it was distinctive enough that the pawnbroker recognized it. He did not offer to buy it, but he did get a license plate number as they drove off and reported that to the woman. She called the police and arrests follow.

She was lucky in more ways than one. First, she wasn’t injured in the robbery. Second, the robbers went to a pawn shop and not to a flea market or other unlicensed outlet. Third, the robbers didn’t try to fence the ring on  the Internet.

Despite common belief, pawn shops are not an easy place to fence stolen property. They are probably the most dangerous.

First, pawnbrokers are trained to spot suspicious characters. Second, many (though not all) have computer systems that help organize information about stolen goods. Third, if the pawnbroker is unwary enough to take in the stolen property, he also takes in picture ID, address, thumbprint, usually a telephone number: Everything needed to make it easy to trace the miscreant.

It’s a good idea to keep records of your valuable property: serial numbers, photos, receipts. And back them up on a disc or external drive in case the valuable property that’s stolen is your computer.

 

 

We admire a fake

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Yesterday found us around the desk admiring a phony Mexican 50-peso gold coin.

A customer had offered to sell it, along with a fistful of pre-1964 US silver coins, which were genuine and which we did buy.

Mexican 50-peso golds, real or fake, are not rare, and we do not stop to admire them. But this fake was a beauty. It looked right. It felt right. It weighed the right amount. If it had been real, it would have been worth well over $1,000.

It would have fooled most people, which, of course, what somebody had designed it to do. But it did not fool the go/no go gauge, which is almost the court of last resort when it comes to checking coins. (The last resort is cutting into the coin for acid testing; which if the coin has — or is supposed to have — collector value you do not want to do.)

The run-of-the-mill fake gold coin is made by forming a mold from a genuine coin, then pouring in molten metal while the mold spins rapidly. This spreads the metal to the farthest reaches of the mold,  but it also leaves a gradient that is obvious at a glance to a trained eye.

It will fool most of the people most of the time, which is good enough most of the time.

This fake, however, was struck on a die, the way genuine coins are made. It takes a pretty hefty die to make coins, so the spin mold method is easier for counterfeiters. This one had a perfect “boardwalk,” the flat area next to the milled edge, which tilts in a spun coin. Every detail was crisp as only a die-struck coin can be.

However, however the die was made, it was not exactly the right size. (Getting the weight exactly right is difficult, too, but not impossible.)

It is very common, when we are brought counterfeit coins, to have them come in along with genuine ones. It is unlikely that the customer made his high-class coin; or than anybody on Maui is striking such good fakes. We cannot tell, but when someone brings in a fake, it is usually most likely that they are victims, not con artists.

It is not a pleasant part of the pawnshop business to tell a customer that he has presented you a phony coin. The implication is either, “You are a crook” or “You are gullible.”

In  the first instance, you don’t want his return business; but in the second, you do (at least if he brings in better goods next time). But who can tell?

The moral of this story is: Know who you are buying from. The fakes are getting better and better.

The next item of business yesterday was a “collection” of bottles, including some wine bottles that could have been brought the day before yesterday at the grocery store, with wine in them. Some of the older bottles were potentially collectible but chipped. The whole collection was valueless. At least to us.

The next item after that was in a way the exact opposite of the fake gold coin: a small jade necklace. It was real but also valueless. You can buy these trinkets from vendors at Waikiki for a dollar or two.

Sometimes it’s a relief when a customer brings in a fishing reel. Its gears may be worn out, and it may or may not be worth hundreds of dollars, but at least you don’t have to wonder if it’s “reel.”

The real McCoy

The real McCoy

 

 

 

 

Annals of dumb crooks

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And a not-too-bright employer, as well.

This story about a minor fiddle (total value to crook: $507.93) leaves us with some questions.

First, why didn’t he throw the pawn tickets away? He was not planning to redeem the computers he stole.

Second, why didn’t the school system have 1) an inventory sticker on its computer; and 2) an inventory check.

If you follow down in the comments, you get this gem:

One time I found a pc on the curb to be picked by the trash collector.

I took it in and found over 12,000 medical files relating to a certain hospital.   Yes the pc belong to a doctor.

If that anecdote is valid (and we have no reason to think it isn’t), then you can see how a pawn shop has some difficulty in confirming that a customer really does own the item he’s pawning.  Our Maui pawn shop requires the customer to state that he is the owner, and as further encouragement to square dealing, to leave his ID, thumbprint, address and phone number with us. (Part of that is required by law.)

But since by definition, all our collateral comes in a second-hand goods (even if sometimes still new and in its shrink wrap), and because items (like computers) can pass from hand to hand, even a sticker label reading “Kanawha County School District” would not necessarily tip us off to suspect a theft. (See comment quoted above.)

What does help is notification of losses. That’s why Kamaaina Loan And Cash For Gold has mystolengoods.com. It’s a unique and free service. If you’ve been ripped off on Maui, file a police report, then post up a description of your lost goods.

We check it every day. It is used more for stolen jewelry than for computers but it could include anything.

Knowing your serial numbers helps, of course, especially with things like computers. But waiting more than a year to notice you’ve been robbed pretty much guarantees that all precautions are going to be unhelpful.

The story does not say whether the school district recovered its computers. Probably not.

 

Mean streets

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As Kamaaina Loan blog has noted many times, a pawnshop is a stupid place to try to fence stolen goods, since you have to leave your picture ID, thumbprint, address and phone number — not to mention your performance on the surveillance camera for the burglary squad to enjoy.

But pawnshops are also a poor choice if you are planning to rob somebody. Most American pawnshops deal in firearms, so the people behind the counter are familiar with how guns work.

This is not true for Hawaii, where pawnbrokers mostly choose not to deal in firearms. But in Hawaii, armed stickups are thankfully rare anyhow.

In the tough town of Hamtramck, Michigan, three robbers chose the low odds approach, according to this report from the local Channel 2.

It seems ALL the pawnshop employees were packing heat, and before it was over, one robber was shot dead and the others were in cuffs.

But it was  business as usual for Hamtramck, where, according to the police chief Garbarino:

“It’s not too often we get things like this in Hamtramck. Most of our shop owners are armed around here, not to mention our police response is under 30 seconds. In fact, we were here within 30 seconds of getting the call.”

The story does not say, but presumably the pawnshop had a silent alarm that someone tripped when the bad guys came in.

There’s an easier way to get cash from a pawnbroker — bring in something you own (even burglars must own something), and take out a pawn loan.

Mike's. Don't mess with him

Mike’s. Don’t mess with him

 

 

Crying all the way to the pawn, shop, no doubt

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So many people — 5,000 a day — want to check out the “Pawn Stars” store in Vegas that it’s creating a traffic jam and making it difficult to keep videotaping. Brent Montgomery, creator of the top-rated show, who was in Banff, Alberta, Canada for some reason, said

A long wait

A long wait

:

the popularity of the reality show has brought big changes to the family business on which it is based.

The daily number of customers at the World Famous Gold and Silver Pawn Shop depicted on the show has gone from 70 to 5,000.

“It’s made production hard because we can’t let them all in at one time because it starts to look like a studio show and not a reality show,” Montgomery told the Banff World Media Festival.

“We also have to make sure they’re not in the way. They all want to take pictures.”

At Kamaaina Loan’s Maui pawn shop, we get nervous about customer satisfaction if the line is longer than 2 people. But we are not very famous. Yet.

Too much aloha?

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So, is this the reason our Maui pawn shop wasn’t selected for a reality TV show? Are we too nice, too?

A Washington pawnbroker who was approached  by a show producer didn’t make the grade:

 

With TV cameras following her throughout the day, she treated Jodi Flynn and the crew to a lesson in firearms and taser use. “We all had a wonderful time together for those few days, and Jodi really enjoyed herself.”

After several days of filming, Jodi phoned Nancy informing her that Ben’s Loan wouldn’t make the cut. The official verdict: “She’s just too nice.” 

Jodi explained that while Nancy treated her customers with compassion, her staff was extremely caring and professional, and her customers love her, it’s not the sort of thing that audiences come to expect from reality television.

Coming next, “Jerry Springer: Pawn Broker”?

Words we like to hear

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Kamaaina Loan blog often grouses about the difference we perceive between how we see ourselves (and other pawnshops) and how the public sees us. Basically, the unpleasant guy played by Rod Steiger in “The Pawnbroker.”

So we were pleased to see reporter Jaime O’Neill in the Chico (Calif.) News & Review go out and see for himself. He, too, started with the Rod Steiger view, as he says,

I pitched this piece thinking it would provide the opportunity to write a hard-edged slice of Oroville noir focused on pawnshops where down-and-outers went from the Indian casinos to the pawnshops to hock their dead mothers’ wedding rings for a few pennies on the dollar, hoping to get enough money to return to the casinos and feed the slots once more, chasing the chimera of winning their money back so they could make the rent.

He was surprised.

Though it may be true that such scenarios get played out somewhere in the nexus between hard times and pawnshops, that wasn’t the story I found when I sat down to interview Danielle Batha, Chris Daniels and Gary Besser before business hours on a recent Thursday morning.

Instead, he found a pretty pawnbroker selling whole mammoth tusks and $5,000 Stetsons and not too much about busted gamblers hocking rings. Rather,

“I just don’t see that as a driving force,” she said. “More often, we see customers coming in who’ve had a win and they’re looking to go shopping. It’s not all tears and sad stories,” Daniels adds. “It’s like a curio shop.”

 

It’s quite a long piece, in fact the longest story about a pawnshop we’ve ever seen in a newspaper, and bouncy and positive, so of course we liked it.

As we have observed often, all pawnshops are different.  At Kamaaina Loan, our pawnbrokers are not kept behind thick plexiglass windows like in Oroville.

“We’re putting out the message that we’re not victims, and not about to be victimized,” Daniels answered. “We want customers to know that this is a very safe and secure place, and that stuff they pawn with us will be here when they come back to get it.”

 

Lucky we live Maui. On Maui, the post office clerks also deal across an open counter. If you don’t travel, you won’t know how different things are on the Mainland.

Not everywhere, but in some places, the United States Post Office is so afraid of its customers that a sliding, bulletproof glass is raised for you to put your money through, then lowered, while a second sliding, bulletproof glass on the clerk’s side is raised for him to take it.

But the basic dealings are pretty much the same at pawnshops in the Wild West of Oroville and the mild west of Maui:

“One of the things I’ve liked about working here,” Daniels added, “is how often people are grateful for the help we’re able to offer them.”

Batha nodded. “Our women customers tend to be really sweet people,” she added. “Lots of the people we do business with are single moms trying to get to the end of the week. They’ll bring in jewelry or laptops. Sometimes it’s for just enough money to fill the gas tank.”

 

 

 

Another pawn shop movie

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There are not a lot of films set in pawn shops. The best known, “The Pawnbroker” with Rod Steiger, is not admired by pawnbrokers, because it portrays them as grasping and cold, which they think is unrealistic.

Now there is another, called — what else? — “Pawn Shop.” We haven’t seen it, but it doesn’t sound very realistic either.

Pawn Shop tells the story of Rey (Garrett Morris) who has been working in the same pawn shop for nearly 30 years. In all that time, he’s refused to let his adult son Mike (Foolish) become his own man. These days, Mike earns his keep working in the shop, where he’s constantly bickering with his cheapskate dad and his eccentric co-worker Tony (Cool Aide). But trouble starts to brew when someone swipes local thug Pierre’s ( Joe Torry ) jewelry right out from under his nose, and police accuse Mike of dealing in stolen property. Now, with the law closing in on one side and Pierre looking for blood on the other, Mike is about to discover why doing the best thing isn’t always the easiest thing.

 

But at least it’s supposed to be funny.

Not all that funny, evidently, since it went straight to DVD.

Ah, well, we pawnbrokers will have to keep seeking our muse.

If that’s a 4-foot-long catfish, we must be in Indiana

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An Indiana pawn shop has started a reality TV show about itself for local cablevision.

Early submissions were a large stuffed catfish and a phony check not written, as claimed, by George Washington. Sounds interesting.

In case you’re wondering about the reality pawn show that Kamaaina Loan auditioned for in October, things are progressing. The “sizzle” (TV lingo for a short sampler used to try to interest producers in watching a longer pilot show) has been turned down by several networks but not all. Several appointments are scheduled in the next few weeks to keep hunting for a home.

We had a great time meeting folks who brought their unusual treasures to us for our sizzle to promote a Maui pawn reality show

No, no, no, not that kind of stuffed catfish

and are grateful no one asked us to place a value on a stuffed catfish ($450 in Indiana). A stuffed marlin we could have dealt with.