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There was once a stigma attached to the traditional pawnbrokers shop, but with times getting tough and the security of banks looking shaky, more and more people are seeing the pawn shop as an alternative to a high street bank.

Pawnbrokers window

It's a simple system of temporarily turning your collateral into cash for short-term gain and the idea has been around for centuries, in various forms across the world.

While banks are increasingly reluctant to deal with certain people, pawnbroker shops are opening up around the country; the existing ones are reporting an increase in trade and a wider variation of customers. 100 years ago, pawnbrokers were rife, as people were poorer and many didn't have bank accounts. In the 1970s there were about 50 pawn shops across the country, but it has grown to such an extent in the last couple of decades that there are now around 1000 shops.

Herbert Brown opened three shops in Leeds in 1840 and they soon spread to Sheffield, Hull and further afield across the north of England. The company now has branches in Manchester, the North East and one in Glasgow, as well as the original bunch across Yorkshire.

The jewellery shop at Herbert Brown

"The history of pawnbrokers is great because it's something that has worked through the ages," says Rod Mason who is managing director for Herbert Brown.

"Even through the growth years there's always been a market for people who need our line of credit because they don't have access to a bank account of can't get traditional lines of credit.

Herbert Brown himself

"We've been the obvious flexible answer. But from time to time and probably increasingly now because of the credit crunch, we're starting to see people who used to be able to get credit but need to look at other sources now - people who are better off but need that short-term cash injection."

Rod Mason says that short-term loans are a big reason that people are turning to pawnbrokers rather than their banks: "Even though people might be cutting down on what they're buying, there's a whole group of people who have got jewellery at home that they want to use to secure a short-term loan at the moment."

"Pawnbrokers can be a bit shrouded in mystery though but we want to show people that it's a very modern business - very open... friendly, flexible and easy."

Herbert Brown pawnbrokers in Sheffield

Marie Atkin manages the Sheffield branch of Herbert Brown. She explains the process of pawnbroking: "Someone comes in with jewellery, watches, silverware. I will value it and give a pawnbroking value - not how much they paid, how much they could sell it for or what it's valued at for insurance purposes - but it's an actual loan against the jewellery, a percentage of what they've actually bought it for."

Marie says that Sheffield has a particularly wide range of customers. "Sheffield is very mixed because it's in the town centre, some may want Β£10 others Β£1000 loan - there are a lot of people on different budgets, men and women."

She explains why she thinks pawnbrokers shops are getting more popular for a different reason than just the credit crunch: "The more banks close their doors to people, the busier a pawnbrokers is getting. People are fed up - they want to come in and see a person or phone me up and ask a question.

Counter at a pawnbrokers

"It's just personal, rather than it being 'Oh we'll have to put you through to this number and that number.'"

According to Marie, only about 18-20% of people don't return to redeem their item at the end of their seven month contract: "We don't want them to leave it, we want them to collect it so they can then re-use the jewellery again. If they don't come back, we have to sell the jewellery to regain our money."

Jewellery

Herbert Brown and other pawnbroker/jewellery chains are doing well during the recession because of the two-pronged nature of their business. Herbert Brown's Sheffield shop is separated into two distinct parts; the jewellers looks much like any other high street jeweller and deals in new and second hand jewellery, and the pawnbrokers is a separate narrow room with a long glass-screened counter very much like a small building society.

Although this pawnbrokers and other large ones in the UK specialise in gold, diamonds and watches because of the secure nature of these goods, there are still independent and specialist pawnbrokers who will take anything from your Barbie dolls and mother's stuffed owl in a glass case to your classic car, piano or Van Gogh.

The earliest pawnbrokers are thought to have been in China around 3000 years ago. Christopher Columbus might not have discovered the Americas if his trip had not been paid for by the Queen of Spain, who is said to have pawned her jewels.

Rod and Marie of Herbert Brown

The symbol for pawnbrokers - three golden balls - are said to come from the Medici family crest. The Medicis were a big Italian moneylending family in the middle ages who lent money to royalty.

The children's nursery rhyme, Pop Goes the Weasel is all about pawn shops as Marie - manager of Sheffield's Herbert Brown, explains: "Half a pound of tuppeny rice, half a pound of treacle, mix it up and make it nice, pop goes the weasel... They're making a cake, mixing it all up but they've not got enough money to get the ingredients so they have to 'pop' (pawn) the 'weasel' which is a shoemaker's tool. That nursery rhyme goes back 100-odd years."