Life in Hock

Pawnbrokers find the goods that cross their counters a reflection of the times. In 1932 business was rotten: the U.S. had run out of things to hock. Now pawnshops--like the nation--are on a queer, priority-ridden, psychologically insecure spree. Despite typewriter freezing (which has stopped loans on a pawnshop specialty), despite the fact that no workman today would think of hocking his irreplaceable micrometers, calipers and toolbox, most U.S. pawnshops are in the money.

> Skittish civilians are sweeping hock-shop shelves clean of shotguns, rifles, pistols, revolvers.

> With more Americans working than ever before, second-hand alarm clocks are a national best seller. (One New Orleans shop sold 300 a day until its stock was cleaned out.)

> Workers who move to new jobs pawn clothes, jewelry, watches, radios and cameras to get railway fare. When they get their first checks they redeem the goods by mail. A Los Angeles shop sent a radio on to a workman in Honolulu last week. Into one shop walked a carpenter who had borrowed $80 last year to get to a construction job in Alaska. He repaid his loan and gave the proprietor $1,400 in cash for safekeeping.

> Determined air-raid wardens and plane spotters are buying binoculars (except those which meet Navy specifications) and telescopes. In Washington (where pawnshops are illegal but "secondhand merchandise establishments" carry on just the same) antiques, glasses and brassbound telescopes that had been in hock for decades are being snapped up by a rush of buyers.

> Soldiers, sailors and Marines, bent on fun or a furlough home, hock rings, watches, civvies, tailor-made officer uniforms, trench coats, portable radios--anything but Government-issued goods, which hock shops cannot accept. To the amazement of pawnbrokers, servicemen are quick to redeem their property--especially the ubiquitous wrist watch inscribed from the "girl back home."

> Newest items on which pawnbrokers like to make loans: silk stockings and war stamps.

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