Credit without the crunch: man pawns off $15,000 gold and diamond dentures
Arizona Coin Collector
Before clicking the link shown below, there is
A photo of dentures that look disgusting.
Nasty looking. Yuck!
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FROM:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5187931.ece
Times On-Line London
From Times OnlineNovember 19, 2008
Credit without the crunch: man pawns off
$15,000 gold and diamond dentures
David Byers
For some, the credit crisis now has much less
of a crunch.
Amid soaring debt and house repossessions, US
pawn shops have reported a wave of people
handing over their gold and diamond dentures.
The above pair, pictured at the State Pawners
and Jewellers in Chicago, Illinois, were said
to have belonged to an owner desperate to pay
$1,500 for his daughter's college fees.
Scott Cohen, the store owner, said that the
unnamed man who pawned them had paid $15,000
for the dentures - inlaid with seven carats
of diamonds and three rubies - when new.
Mr Cohen initially admitted he was "kind of
grossed out and kind of shocked" when the
seller pulled them out of his mouth - but he
was quickly moved by the story, and agreed to
give him the 90-day loan that he desperately
needed minus the customary 10 per cent per
monthly interest charge. "It was the most
touching thing I'd ever seen," he told the
Chicago Sun-Times.
The tale appears to be far from an isolated
incident, as people in the United
States - which has by far the largest number
of pawn shops in the world - find ever more
ingenius ways of raising cash to meet their
financial obligations with recession biting.
Earlier this year, Orlando news website
Local6.com reported what it said was a
"dental gold rush" at pawn shops across
Florida.
"People are really cashing in. If a dentist
passes away, their kids come in with a big
pile of gold teeth," said Scott Taber, owner
of Taber Coins, a coin dealer, said.
He said a rapidly rising number of people
were handing over gold teeth in pawn shops.
"People are digging up the gold and
starting to sell it," he said.
Pawn shops outside the US also appear to be
experiencing a similar boom.
In Russia, Moscow's stores have reported
roaring business with Vadim Karashuk, the
head of Moscow's 16 state-owned pawn shops,
estimating that they collectively loan
around $200,000 a day compared to about
$130,000 two months ago.
"We're lending out more cash now than ever
because the banks are giving less credit,"
he said "Before it was mainly older people
with cheaper stuff, but now it's middle
class people with more valuable gold and
jewellery."
Although there are far fewer pawn shops in
the UK than in North America, Scandinavia
and Australia, these too are said to be
experiencing a growing number of
professional visitors - not simply those
from traditionally low-income families.
"Over the last three to four years, we have
noticed the amount of professionals coming
into our stores increase," David Towse,
marketing manager of pawnbrokers Harvey
and Thompson, told the Reuters news agency.
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