Marilyn Vigil watched patiently as the pawnshop employee weighed the several gold chains she hoped would amount to a needed loan.
Unemployed for months despite a newly earned master's degree, Vigil worried about upcoming expenses with the onset of cooler weather.
"The economy's not getting any better, and winter's coming, and I need tires for my car," said Vigil, an Arvada resident who visited EZPawn in west Denver for the first time.
Pawning her chains — "They would just stay in the jewelry box, so why not get some use out of them?" — was better than using a credit card, she said.
"You can't trash your credit at a pawnshop," she said.
Vigil is part of a booming national trend of renewed interest in pawnshops from those who long ago wrote the industry off as a dumping ground of stolen items for street thugs and drug users.
While pawnshops say that's not true — fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of items are of "questioned ownership," the industry touts — it has been an unwanted moniker.
But the popularity of hit reality-television shows such as "Pawn Stars" and "Cajun Pawn Stars" on History, and "Hardcore Pawn" on TruTV, has caused a resurgence of interest and a change of heart, according to the National Pawnbrokers Association.
That and a crippling economy have propelled pawn into a $10 billion industry with annual growth rates hitting 10 percent, enough to attract publicly traded companies such as Texas-based EZCorp. They sit next to pawnshops owned by families for a half century or longer, still the bulk of the business.
Now, it's as common to see customers in business attire as it would be jeans and a T-shirt.
"The pawnshop image has changed in the eyes of the American consumer, largely because of TV shows bringing viewers through a front door they might not have opened," said NPA spokesman Emmett Murphy.
In a phrase, pawnshops are cool.
"It's been more of a transition that's become particularly acute since the financial crisis. Over the last five years, it's more mainstream than ever before," said Eric Garman, president of the Colorado Pawnbrokers Association and a regional director of operations at EZCorp, which owns EZPawn stores here.
"We actually are the easiest industry to get money, within minutes," he said. "There are not that many places where you can do that."
As the economy roughed up consumers no matter their income, meeting expenses in the face of unemployment for some meant credit cards.
"There comes a point where you just can't ruin your credit because you have to live with that for a very long time," said Brian Baron, 43, owner of Baron's Sprinkler and Landscaping in Aurora.
"It's much better to pawn something you might not use or need than to lose something bigger, like a car payment or your credit," the longtime pawnshop customer said.
The seasonality of Baron's business — he's reliant on sprinkler blow-out orders this time of year — means wintertime can be lean for work.
"If there's not lots of snow, you need cash to get by," he said. "I have five kids, and for Christmas presents, a couple of rings will help with that until tax time comes."
A burgeoning foreclosure crisis added to the pressure, and as the crisis blossomed, more people pawned.
"There was a period of time, around the height of the crisis, where the industry saw a lot of people who were trying to save their homes, with many saying they were having trouble with unemployment and needed to make their mortgage or their rent," Garman said.
Nationally, the average amount of a pawnshop loan — all pawn transactions are purchase agreements with a "back-out" clause that allows individuals to redeem their item for a moderate flat interest charge over 30 days — is about $150, according to an NPA survey. In 2010, the group says, it was $100.
And of those loans, about 85 percent are redeemed.
In Colorado, about 270 shops make up the industry, with roughly 60 stores each in Denver and Colorado Springs.
The biggest change, industry experts agree, is the shift in customer demographics.
"We saw a lot of real-estate and mortgage brokers, teachers and that sort of customer, people not normally thought of as using a pawnshop," said Tim Lanham, the former owner of about 50 shops and a past president of the CPA.
The shift, he said, coincides with the popularity of reality shows that feature pawnshops, where people from all walks of life bring in a variety of items, some steeped more in history than value.
The shows have created a few false realities, shop owners say.
"What strikes me is the misconception that I can just call someone up who is an expert on anything I need," mused Shirley Widom, whose family has owned Pacific Jewelry & Loan in Aurora since it began life in 1948 in downtown Denver. "We're jacks of all trades and masters of none."
A graduate degree in gemology helps Widom discern good from not-so-good stones in jewelry. But she'll occasionally get the television buff who gets a wild idea from one of the shows.
"Some of those things on the shows are kind of ridiculous," she said. "Who's going to buy an old barber chair or a shrunken head?"
She stops a moment in thought, then adds with a slight chuckle: "Though there was that one guy with the medical- school skeleton that I liked. But it had broken kneecaps and a cracked cranium, obviously a guy who didn't pay his bill."
She said she passed.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506, dmigoya@denverpost.com or twitter.com/davidmigoya
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