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Pawnshop Clients Trending Upscale

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By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: February 7, 2009

TAMPA - The face of the neighborhood pawnshop is changing. Traditionally, they squatted on the poor sides of town, catering to the desperate and down-and-out, people who slink in with a piece of jewelry or a cheap stereo for needed cash.

But some pawnshops around town are noticing a different clientele. They still are desperate, but they come in wearing designer clothes or toting Rolexes or multicarat diamond cufflinks, or even, at one North Tampa pawnshop, a Tiffany ring signifying that the wearer won a recent Super Bowl.

Secrets between a guy and his pawnbroker sometimes stay secret, and Capital Pawn owner Joe Cacciatore won't say which player pawned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl ring from the 2002-03 season, but Cacciatore did say he eventually sold it for a "suitcase full of money."

Like many in all strata of income these days, the former Bucs player had fallen on hard times about a year and a half before coming in, after he was released by the team, Cacciatore said. The player brought the ring into the shop to get a quick loan without the hassle of going through a bank.

At first, Cacciatore said he thought the ring was a fake or stolen. He had an undercover detective come in to witness the deal. But it all turned out to be legit.
Cacciatore kept the ring for the allotted 60 days and even longer. The ex-Buc was trying to negotiate a contract with another team and ended up getting $6,000 from the pawnshop for the ring that cost about $17,000 to make. Then he moved out of Tampa and never returned to claim the championship bauble, Cacciatore said.

At first, Cacciatore says he wanted to keep the ring, but then decided against it.

"It's like someone else shooting a deer and you putting the head up in your living room," he said. "It just wasn't right."

He ended up selling the ring to a die-hard Bucs fan in Fort Lauderdale for $25,000.

"We gave him the ring," Cacciatore said, "and he gave us a suitcase full of money."

The ring is just one item that shows a shift in who walks through the doors of a pawnshop these days.

"We have over 60 Rolexes in pawn," Cacciatore said, including an elite President worth $27,000 and a Pearlmaster worth nearly $50,000. He shows off a 5.33-carat diamond worth about $250,000.

He has an NFL Players Association ring and a diamond-encrusted marlin that was brought in by a Florida Marlins baseball player, he said. A Spanish coin that was recovered from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish ship that sank in a Caribbean storm in 1622, is among the collection.

All the stuff is appraised with documents available to show the stuff is genuine, Cacciatore said.

"We have heirlooms and collectibles," he said, and some museum-quality sculptures and paintings.

In an economy that has investment bankers in the unemployment lines with roofers and landscapers, desperation is casting a wider net, and that has led to an upscale boom in the pawnshop business, Cacciatore said.

"The way the economy is today," he said, "people are hurting, and they need help. We get businessmen coming in pawning things just to make payroll just so they can pay employees."

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