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"Knowing the Object and the Man"

“Know the object, not the man” was once a golden rule in the pawn industry. It bound pawn brokers to focus on the value of an object, not the person bringing it to the broker for pawn.

The industry’s rules are more complicated now. A modern pawn broker must have an ability to distinguish the valuable from the invaluable, but must also be able to determine the legitimacy of an item’s ownership. Accepting stolen goods—even unknowingly—for pawn can subject a pawn broker to the loss of an object if it’s confiscated by the police in connection with an investigation, according to today’s pawn industry management rules.

“Knowing the customer is very important,” said Yu Bensheng, a senior pawn shop clerk. “I ask them questions, and with my experience, I can usually tell something after just a few questions.” He once turned down a deal when he became suspicious of a young man who tried to pawn a thin, broken golden necklace, after the youth said he used to wear it. “I’d rather lose the business when I have the slightest suspicion,” said Yu. “Minimizing risks is the unbending principle.”

But there’s more at risk than the simple legitimacy of an object. Determining an object’s value and how much to loan on the basis of that value is a necessary skill. The principle is to make sure the object can be sold with a profit after deducting the loan and relevant fees. All of this depends on the pawn broker’s experience, market demand, market trends and many other factors. “The key and also the hardest part for a pawn shop clerk is understanding the rules of the industry and making correct judgments based on broad experience of the objects and the market,” Yu said. Yu has this experience, obtained with his 40 years of work as a jewellery appraiser in an import/export company: he began working in the pawn industry following his retirement.

One critical word arises again and again when discussing the pawn business: experience; it is key to the pawn industry success, because of the wide range of objects involved. “In principle, every object that has value can be pawned,” said Yu. “So it’s impossible for a person to be an expert in every category of stuff, especially when it comes to jewellery.”

There is a Chinese idiom that says: “Gold has a price, while jade doesn’t.” This means there is no definite scale for jade. Even with four years of study as a jewellery appraisal major at a college, a competent pawn clerk still has a need for years of internship under wise mentors.

“Take an emerald as an example: when an object comes, the first thing is to see whether it is an ‘A’ product or a ‘B’ or ‘C’ product. ‘A’ means the object is natural and has just undergone philosophical processing like cutting and graving; ‘B’ and ‘C’ means it has been chemically processed and has little value. Experienced clerks can tell the difference at first sight. Then you consider its quality, its colour and transparency and whether it has flaws and cracks. You ask yourself, is it an heirloom? Does it have cultural value or reflect expert craftsmanship? All of these things are taken into consideration. Only then can a clerk value the object and make a final offer.”