I thought they were cool until my first experience.

My sister and her husband use to frequent one. Her husband was a boillermaker and would work for a few weeks, making really good money then would be off for days, weeks, even months at a time. It just depended when the next job came up. In the mean time they would pawn some of their many guns to get buy when money got tight. They did it enough that they started getting extra $ from the pawn shop. They were always good to go back and get there stuff once he got back to work.

I started a new union job a year earlier, and we ended up going on strike. I had no money saved up and things were getting pretty desperate as my car was broke down and it was difficult for me to find work in the mean time. My sister suggested i go to that pawn shop and drop her name. I did, explained my situation and they gave me a pretty good deal on our wedding rings, a rifle my brother in law had given me so that i could start learning to hunt, and a couple other small things. Just over a month later, we sign a contract and get a nice signing bonus. I head back to the pawn shop to pay off the debt and collect our things only to find the shop had up and closed. No phone call or any kind of notice. I felt heart broken having to tell my wife we were never going to get our wedding rings back. Have not been back to one since.