Pawnbroking and nursery rhymes

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.