the pawn king

People lock up their electronics, tools, and appliances (in that order).
But the first thing they pawn is gold.
If you bring a gold ring in the pawn shop window in the back corner of the M & M pawn shop-above the fake-
Marble countertops, beneath the neon lights of the \"pawn\" flashing on the left side of the rack stacked with 12 guitars (
6 Sound, 6 Electricity)—
Owner Mike cricio will rub your ring on a rough rock called touchstone.
Then, squinting his eyes, he will squeeze the nitric acid onto the stripes left by the ring on the stone.
If the stripes turn green or disappear quickly, you are unlucky. It’s fake gold.
Your ring is almost worthless. A milky-
Gold means Grayplated silver—
In some pawnshops, which one can buy you a few dollars
But cricio, a picky buyer, won\'t accept it.
The jewelry box for M & M is packed and melted
Falling silver is less than 2% of the melting pricedown gold.
If the stripes stay on the stone, your ring is real.
But don\'t expect the value of gold to be close to $1,200 an ounce, which is the value of gold in the international market.
This is a pawnshop after all.
Pawnshops provide quick and convenient short
The customer\'s item (called \"pawn\") is a term loan as collateral.
In exchange for convenient cash, pawnshops can expect low ratings and high interest rates.
While a simple gold wedding band sells for about $300 at a jewelry store, it only costs $30 at the pawn window.
You can bargain with cricio and you can curse him when he refuses to let the step, but in the end, you will take the cash.
Most pawnshops lack property and a good credit score.
They can\'t get a loan anywhere else.
You will exchange your ring for a pawnshop ticket and promise yourself that you will take out the money within 30 days --
Interest of 24%to buy it back.
Pawnshops flourished during periods of economic turmoil: Although many new haven businesses were affected by the recent recession, M & A transactions doubled, from 30,000 in 2007 to 60,000 in 2008.
When people are abandoned by traditional banking institutions
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, one of every four Americans is \"not deposited in the bank or not deposited in the bank\"
Marginal economies have made up the gap.
Nationwide, the number of pawnshops increased by 50% between 2007 and 2012 (
Have the latest picture)
To more than 10,000 stores.
The rise may also be related to a new batch of pawnshops --
Theme reality show
Programs like History Channel Pawn Stars and TruTV\'s core pawn feature the middle
Customers who sell chuanheir in spiffyand-
Cross warehouse (
Celebrities such as Bob Dylan and Katie courick occasionally make guest appearances).
In the words of 2010 New York Times article, this is a change to \"back-
Image of the alley pawnshop.
Emit Murphy, spokesman for the national Pawnshop Association, said: \"pawnshops are cool now.
But for many Americans who are in desperate need, pawnshops don\'t seem to shine.
They are shady, illegal institutions, frequent visits-and-
Out of the customer, operate with money-mongers.
They appear in poor cities, struggling neighborhoods, dilapidated buildings
At 32 New Haven Howe Street, Connecticut, the location of M & M pawn shop.
Walking a few blocks east, you\'ll find yourself in the Ivy League of Yale --covered walls;
Walking north, you\'ll end up in dickwell, a neighborhood with a crime rate that\'s almost double the Newhaven average.
The Pawnshop is located in a quiet corner.
Next door is a family of five. story, 148-
Unit housing project.
Across the street is an abandoned place. Kitty-
The horn is the stronghold of redemption.
Below the block is a shabby gas station.
A yellow awning hangs on the colored window of the pawnshop, announcing with a thick black letter: M & M pawnshop and cheque cashing company, LLC. MONEY TRANSFER. BILL PAY. WE BUY GOLD.
Customers enter through a heavy metal door, which was placed in one two years ago.
Be robber tried to cross it with a truck.
Since then, the store has reduced robbery attempts by installing 16 security cameras and 4 hidden guns.
Walking into the M & M pawnshop feels like walking into Home Depot, Toy \"R\" Us, Best Buy, jeweler of Zale, sports bureau and PetCo.
The wheelchair shares ground space with the Tricycle.
The heat wheel shares a shelf with the saddle.
The electric drill set sits on the side of the Pastamatic, sitting next to the Cuisinart, sitting next to the grand slam Turkey Fryer-
According to the description on the box, it can be used as a seafood kettle.
The shelves were packed with abandoned used goods and the walls were almost invisible. There are 150-
Strange Instrument, 50-
A few hundred theaters.
Screen TV, dozens of clocks, three washing machines-
Machines, fish tanks full of fish, fish tanks full of condoms, King Kong Arcade, mopeds, scooters, deer heads and six artificial Christmas trees.
Until recently, a glass case between the porn collection and the glue ball machine accommodated a 6-foot python.
The snake ran away three years ago.
Disappeared in the store for a month.
After 23 years in the Pawnshop
It\'s also a thrift store, a check.
A Western Union money transfer store, a locksmith and a Connecticut lottery seller
Cricio has well identified what is true and what is false.
307 gold rings on the display
Gorgeous big diamond ring, simple ring with single Pearl, hazelnut-
The size of the Indian headwear ring has a gem on each golden feather.
Mike cricio and his staff tested each of them. Hundred-dollar bill?
Lift the watermark to the front of the lamp. Customer’s ID?
When the customer presses the thumb to the fingerprint scanner, match the picture with the image on the computer screen.
But it can be tricky to find fake checks.
There was no foolproof test, so cricio learned to read.
He claims that he can often identify loyal customers from \"scammers\" and \"assholes.
\"When asked to describe a pawn line in two words, many people may choose\" liar \"and\" bastard \", which he is not naive at all.
Pawnshops are often accused of usury, theft and greed.
\"People like to say this, but they are wrong,\" he said . \"
The bad reputation of the industry also has a lot to do with its business model, which has remained unchanged for hundreds of years.
It works like this: A customer walks into a pawnshop and asks for a loan.
He handed over a property.
Like a TV)
As collateral.
When the customer walks into the store, most of the value of the TV is sacrificed: cricio only pays the pawn the third money he wants to resell.
So the customer can walk in with the apartment
He originally bought the TV screen for $1000.
Cricio will value it for $300, while pawner will leave for $100.
Then the customer has a fixed time-Usually 30 days
Buy back his TV with a $100 original loan plus 24% interest.
If the customer does not pay within a month, the TV becomes the property of the pawnshop.
Cricio says he often \"makes an agreement\" with loyal customers to buy back their goods at a much smaller price than they owe him.
He also said that a M & A customer has been buying a $500 gold chain since 2006.
\"It\'s crazy,\" he said . \"
\"Obviously, this chain has emotional value.
\"Each expansion will add $120 to the repo chain.
Cricio says pawnshops have accumulated $10,000 in interest over the past seven years.
In addition to running the M & M pawnshop, cricio has three cheques
Cash in the store, manage 5 New Haven properties, guide high school football, promote professional boxers, and receive retirement benefits from his previous work in state prisons.
\"My accountant said I lost,\" he grinned, but his Land Rover (
He said one of his boxers gave a gift)
His collection of Rolex watches and $70,000 casino ads tell a different story. He’s a go-
No doubt, getter.
But he insisted that he was
A heart of gold.
Every few months, a customer will drag her misbehaving teenager into the M & M pawnshop.
Often, the child smokes too much marijuana, gets his parents angry, or fails at school.
Cricio took care of it: \"I grabbed his neck and threw him on the wall and said, \'You better straighten your ass.
\"Cricio is 6\'1\", gray-
Green Eyes, buzzing blonde hair, and a red face alternating between smirk and frown.
He spoke in light blue.
New England accent.
His voice was loud, active and honest, especially in front of the Manhattan jewelry dealer and other people he didn\'t like.
Still, he is considered neither a liar nor a jerk.
His mother came over on a busy afternoon.
She wears red nail polish, Bluetooth headsets and Diamond Rolex (
Gift from son).
Cricio sits on a fixed phone in the narrow back corridor, swinging back and forth, fiddling with a wooden sword.
He hung up the phone to greet his mother, avoiding her kiss like a teenager, and then investigated the scenes around him.
A woman wearing a headscarf lined up with a baby on her chest to pick up a draft.
A construction worker wearing a bright yellow vest is waiting to buy a lottery ticket.
A fireman paid his salary.
Six customers were waiting at the pawn window and when they competed to be heard by the employees behind the glass, their voices were getting louder and louder.
Crecio raised his hands and surrendered.
\"It\'s a crazy day,\" he said . \" Then go back to the phone.
The front door of the pawnshop opened.
Walking in was a big man with a wrinkled face and a shaved head.
He was dressed in white and gray loose sportswear, his shoulder muscles bulging near his ears, and looked like a giant bulldog.
When he began to talk, it looked like --
He shook his head, licked his lips, and barked, \"Forget it!
\"Over and over again.
When David fitzgerrard met crisio in 1989, he was \"just a plumber who had a hard time at home \".
The two clicked and Fitzgerald started spending the afternoon at the pawnshop, having dinner with Criscios several times a week: \"meatballs, ziti, forget it! ” he said.
Fitzgerald has great respect for the cricio family.
\"Mike started building this place from scratch,\" he said . \" He described his neighbors before the pawnshop opened.
Drug dealers and prostitutes are everywhere, he said.
Criscios cleared the block.
For 20 years since then, they gave ex-
Wear clothes for poor children and buy countless pizzas for hungry customers.
\"Forget it,\" said Fitzgerald.
\"What they do has a place in heaven.
Cricio\'s life story reminds me of \"rumpelceltskin\", a fairy tale about a kid spinning straw into gold.
Proposed by seconds-
A generation of Italians in Branford, north of Connecticut, crecio used his spare time as a child to trim lawns, send newspapers and grow vegetables to his primary school teachers.
He received no allowance.
He said: \"I started messing around when I was 6 years old . \"
Cricio likes the thrill of spending the money he makes.
At 9, he bought a $300 snowmobile for the first time.
Early in high school, he worked as a bodyguard at the New Haven bar (
At 6\'0 \"and 220.
He\'s been fine for 18 years. .
At the university, cricio was given a show as a construction worker, a local union foreman, and a truck driver carrying donuts to the grocery store in the middle of the night.
After dropping out of school to play for Tampa Bay robbers and Montreal Alouettes, he started looking for jobs with higher risk and higher returns: bail guarantors, police officers, prison guards, bounty hunters
He likes the last one very much.
\"You get $500 for kicking the door,\" he said . \".
One day in 1992, when cricio served as a guard at the New Haven Correctional Center, a battle broke out among 84 prisoners.
Cricio was caught in the middle, and finally he was admitted to the hospital for shoulder dislocation, disc herniation, and ACL tears.
\"You\'re done,\" his doctor told him . \".
He retired at the age of 26 after solving the problem of workers\' compensation and benefits with the state.
He said he vowed to keep the amount received from the state confidential.
\"But it works very well,\" he said . \"
Later in the same year, cricio and a friend bought space in a commercial building on Howe Street and opened the pawn palace.
Within a week, the store has hundreds of customers every day.
The friend dropped out of school in 1995 and cricio\'s father replaced him to honor cricio\'s common name \"Mike\" and the store was renamed \"M & M pawnshop\"
\"Now there are more than 2 million customers in the computer system in the store. Old Mike Chris
\"Pop\" guesses that everything in the store is worth more than $10 million.
\"Mike has a lot of balls,\" he said of his son . \".
\"He shot at everything.
If he fails, he will lose a few dollars.
If he succeeds, he will get millions of dollars.
\"In the 2005 season, cricio tried to manage the career of Chad Dawson, a young boxer from New Haven.
According to Joe Tessitore, a ESPN sports show host and cricio\'s friend, cricio already has the necessary skills.
\"Boxing is the purest and unconstrained capitalism,\" says Tessitore . \".
Like pawnshops, boxing managers sail in a world where people live, \"for them, bags full of cash are more than contracts.
By the age of 2006, Dawson won the World Championship and earned tens of thousands of dollars, and his reputation has put other boxers at the door of the pawnshop.
Cricio is now working with 35 professional fighters to earn 10% of their income in each battle (
This ranges from $1,500 for a rookie to $1 million for one of the big names).
But Dawson\'s career is
As cricio said
He began wandering around a group of \"vampires\" in New Haven, spending money on cars and clothes.
Cricio is now suing Dawson for $1 million, but he suspects he will see the cash.
\"What blood do I get from the rock? ” he says.
Dawson lost another war in October.
\"Karma is a bitch,\" says cricio . \".
In the Middle Ages, the logo of the universal pawnshop began to appear at the entrance of Europe: it consists of three golden balls, suspended on curved metal rods, like the Trident of Poseidon upside down
According to one theory, the golden ball represents three coins.
St. Nicholas gave a man who was about to sell his daughter into prostitution.
The dowry paid by the wallet to the daughter avoided their terrible fate, and the European pawnshop used the symbol of three golden balls to imply them, like St.
Nick, to save the poor from the disaster.
But history is not a good shop.
For centuries, they have been accused of usury and various social ills, and described as a chaotic place for folding and bottle rule.
In 1744, an anonymous Londoner published a paper titled \"An apology from a pawn business \".
\"Its 77 pages are filled with lengthy rebuttals of various claims against the industry:\" Objection 1: The business provides the thief with port and encouragement, \"Objection 2:\" objection 7: \"This business is rather bad for the public, not useful. But almost everyone said, pawn.
The broker is a group of sad and harmful people: almost everyone says it must be true.
In William Hogarth\'s 1751 print \"Golden Square\", the health of the pawnshop is inversely proportional to social health: the streets are lined with dilapidated buildings, piles of behavior and drunkenness hanging themselves.
However, pawnshops are booming.
More than 200 years later, the 1964 film \"pawnshop boss\" continued this stereotype, depicting the pawnshop boss as a ruthless person and depicting customers as \"scum \".
From the perspective of a painful Holocaust survivor (
Played by Rod Steiger)
He opened a pawnshop in Harlem, and the film also revealedrooted anti-
Jewish, which has plagued pawnshops for centuries.
Until recently, the owners of pawnshops in Europe and the United States were mostly Jews, and the general prejudice against them led to this shame.
It is a common misconception that the pawnshop owner wants the pawnshop to fail to pay.
In fact, they get far more benefits from reselling abandoned pawns than they do.
That\'s why: if the customer doesn\'t have cash to redeem his pawn after 30 days, he can do it at 30-
The original loan was extended by 24%.
So a customer who pawns a TV for $100 will owe $148 in two months.
If at that time he still had no money, he could extend the loan again$24 more. And so on.
On September, the state Supreme Court of Connecticut filed a lawsuit against a Stratford pawnshop, sentencing a customer to charge 20% per month interest on various watches, bracelets and rings.
The court ruled that state law limited the interest on the \"repurchase agreement\" to 12% per year.
But cricio says pawnshops can charge storage, insurance and other fees.
\"We can still charge 24% per month,\" he said . \".
With such usury rates, it is a miracle that pawnshops have any business.
According to historian Wendy warosen, most pawnshop customers have no other choice.
In the 1800 s, pawnshops were the only institutions to lend to the poor;
Banks and other lenders need down payment and good credit scores today, many low
Revenue not available to customers.
Woloson\'s 2009 book, Hawke: American pawnshops from independence to the Great Depression, sees pawnshops as an inevitable byproduct of the development of American capitalism.
Woloson explained that pawnshops are \"marginal economies\" created by the widening gap between the rich and the poor \".
At the beginning of the 19 th century, the emerging industries and growing immigrant population of the United States created the perfect conditions for the prosperity of pawnshops.
Factory workers with insufficient wages began using their personal property as collateral for small cash loans to get them through the week.
The poverty industry in the eastern coastal cities of the United States was born.
Pawnshop loans are so important to the working class that by 1828 every New York City resident had a pawnshop program.
Wolosen tried to correct what she thought was historically unfair to the pawnshop.
She thought the pawnshop provided
And continue to provide-
Provide a unique and essential service to millions of Americans.
They are the first equal people in our country.
Opportunity Lender
Troy Stoke, Teddy. bear-like 28-year-
The old man who has been working in the M & M pawnshop since 2007 wondered what it would be like without them.
\"For those who are desperate, their children have nothing to eat, they are on the food vouchers, what would they do if there were no pawnshops?
They might steal things, he said. Or worse.
While many people believe that pawnshops have contributed to crime, Stoke believes they have prevented it.
Nevertheless, the pawn caused undeniable losses to its customers.
Non-payment may mean loss of valuable property and it may take hundreds of pounds for continuous updatesor thousands—of dollars.
Woloson wrote: \"The pawnshop made it very clear that the commitment of capitalism was broken for countless Americans.
\"For Brenda, the promise of capitalism has certainly been broken, and Brenda is a woman with scars on her face, who was behind in taxes last year and had to pawn her grandmother\'s ring.
Helio is a Brazilian contractor and has not received a salary in a month.
Penny, a cancer survivor with mental illness, has the habit of forgetting weed packs on the pawn counter. Late in a rainy night
On the autumn morning, six customers were waiting outside the M & M pawnshop.
It\'s cold outside, but they need money. At 10:00 a. m.
Pop, Pop opens the door.
A big guy in cream
A colored polyester suit pushes a bike to the pawn counter and its broken lock hangs around his neck.
Followed by a short guy with one hand in his pocket and the other to his mouth.
Shhh, he said to Stoke, who works in the back.
An item was stolen overnight, pawned by a thief the next morning and re-purchased by a legal owner in the afternoon, which is not unusual.
This is a bug in the pawn system, but how to fix it (
Whether it\'s the responsibility of the police or the pawnshop)
It is not entirely clear.
A state law passed in 2011 required the Connecticut state pawnshop to register transactions so that local authorities could track stolen items.
Every Monday, cricio sends the police a list of items he purchased the previous week for the police to check against their theft reports.
But a few years ago, when the police stopped paying the pawnshop for confiscated goods, the pawnshop began telling customers not to expect the police to retrieve their belongings.
\"You \'d better buy back what you \'ve stolen here,\" he added . \" He explained that legal procedures for redeeming stolen items could take several months.
He said that if you go to the pawnshop before you go to the police station, you will get your things back faster.
Last fall, an Orthodox Jew with a beard and a long black coat walked into the M & M pawnshop every week to ask about a silver candle holder.
They were stolen from his restaurant, he said.
He is searching all the pawnshops in the city.
The New Haven police are more responsible in pawnshops than in the past.
15 years ago, outside the M & M pawnshop, a group of police cars stopped, which is very common --
Pop said it was not because the police closely monitored the deal, but because cricio set up a room behind the pawnshop to let the police watch dirty movies. (
Cricio says it all started during surveillance.
A detective got the news that the M & M pawnshop would be robbed, so dozens of undercover police officers crowded behind the store.
\"The police are getting bored,\" says cricio . \".
So he popped up on the TV in the office and suddenly appeared on a porch.
In the years that followed, the police occasionally stopped to ask cricio, \"Do you have any new films? ”)
Nowadays, only pawnshops were used to pornographic rooms.
There are thousands of people, five storage rooms per inch and one 4,000-square-foot basement.
Attached to each item is a small note that lists the name of the pawnshop, the original loan amount, the date of the pawnshop and the history of the item (
Including the number of extensions).
It is clear why the window of the pawnshop is blocked by the poster.
Finding them is a waste of time-washing fluid.
Most of the profits of M & M pawnshops come from the goods behind the store --
The collection of broken promises gathers interest and dust.
Every day, about 200 customers flocked to No. 32 Howe Street, dragging second-hand tools, appliances, electronics and jewelry.
Under the awning, through the heavy metal door, behind the fake
On the marble table stands Mike crecio, the owner of one of the 10,000 pawnshops in the United States, a land full of opportunities, streets full of concrete, pawnshops door
Read the King of pawn in the Atlantic Ocean.