Pawnbroking and nursery rhymes
September 14th, 2006 | by mbhunter |I was looking into how pawn shops operated, just to satisfy my curiosity. Ran across an interesting fact: “Pop goes the weasel” is about pawnbroking. “Pop” is another word for pawn, and “weasel” could be either a bobbin, or Cockney rhyming slang for a coat. The idea is that the spinner would “pop” his “weasel” so that he could get money to go pubbing:
- Up and down the city road,
- In and out the Eagle,
- That’s the way the money goes,
- Pop! goes the weasel.
It’s far better to be on the other end of the pawning — either being the pawnbroker, or buying the pawnbroked item for less than you could buy them new. The amount of money a pawnbroker will pay for some items is almost highway robbery. Twenty-five cents for CDs. That’s a big markdown. For jewelry they’ll pay a little more. For coins they might give you 90% of spot price because they’re easy to move. But in any case, they’re buying someone’s problem — someone’s stuff that got them into financial trouble.
So keep your weasels from getting popped, and buy other people’s popped weasels to spend a little bit less. 
