Trash & Treasure

by: Caitlyn Y. McNabb

In these hard economic times, it is important to understand the way the market has shifted. More and more the underground, under-the-table market has become prominent and those businesses that once flourished now flounder and others have risen again. One way in which the market has shifted specifically has been to pawn shops.

At Cash Box Pawn, items that were once loved and have now outlived their purpose are sold at half the value to the store. Items include everything from MP3 players to guns to high impact tools and even a stuffed moose has found a home here.

However, it is not the items that have come to roost but the former owners that have taken advantage of Cash Box Pawn’s credit system. Not only can you buy and sell items, you can put up your personal items as collateral for loans up to $1,000. According to Cash Box Pawn employee Lex Saucedo, pawn shops are the oldest form of credit dating back to the 1600s.

Those that bring their personal items into the store desperately need these loans. While I camped out in the store on Aquarena Springs, one man fought with himself and one of the employees over two rifles that I later found he had used while he was in the military and one his grandfather had used on their farm. He eventually made the choice to leave the guns and take the money, knowing full well that he may never again see these things that meant so much to him. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, needed the money to get from month to month. As, according to Saucedo, many of the customers do.

Saucedo added that, especially during the recession, people from all walks of life come into the store. College students, single mothers looking to buy toys for their sons, bicyclists and musicians frequent this and the two other locations of Cash Box Pawn in San Marcos. One musician on this day entered the store looking for a good deal on a guitar with “character”. According to him, “a guitar that ain’t seen a pawn shop can’t play the blues.”

In the short amount of time that I spent at this store, it was easy to see that a wide variety of people use pawn shops as a way to keep afloat in this economic downturn, looking for treasures or just to clean out their garage. You can also discern from the type of business Cash Box Pawn is, that the customers that enter the store do so based on need.