“Every item in a pawn shop gets reported to a police database every day,” he says, adding that anything reported stolen is collected by the cops. To that end, Strauss feels it’s a misconception that there’s a lot of stolen items in a pawn shop. “He came in at a good time, because things were getting kind of complicated for me,” Mielke says, noting that Strauss was able to set up computer systems the way the police wanted him to. In 2011, he handed the reins to his nephew, Strauss, who was looking to get out of farming. Standing not far from a display case containing beautiful pieces of Indigenous beadwork, he says: “Man, it kept you young, working with people.”īut not young enough, as he too felt technology’s march. In fact, he had fun, buying and selling, and he developed a lot of friendships with people he felt were mistreated by society. “A lot of times, that person changes into another person right in front of you,” he says, adding that in all his years working at the pawn shop he “never had an incident with anybody.” “I was a construction man, you know, and you’re kind of tough and rough.”īut he’d put on a good face, listen and meet people where they were at. “The first thing I learned was to keep my mouth shut,” he says. He remembers folks coming in and “letting off steam.” He learned a lot about people, beginning in 1982 - a year when the ornate ashtrays for sale in the shop today might’ve still sat in affluent homes. In fact, he owned and operated it for almost 30 years.
Virgil Mielke is no stranger to the business. He looks at movies on discs that are becoming relics, thanks to advancement.
Photo by KAYLE NEIS / Regina Leader-PostĪt the back of the shop, a man wearing a flat cap slowly examines what’s on the shelves. This hangs next to a calendar featuring the face of Louis Riel.Ī shopper examines guitars at City Collateral pawn shop on Mar. “And all sales are final.”īehind him a sign reads “Complaint Department, take a number” and features the image of a grenade wearing a numbered tag on its pin. His margins are a far cry from his tooth-selling says, with most of his wares now selling for less than half of the prices listed on their tags.Ĭustomers poke around, eyeing the property of folks who decided not to buy it back, or couldn’t. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Strauss tells the story from the office behind the counter of what is, for a few more days, his pawn shop - located on 11th Avenue since the move in 1995. And when the pandemic struck City Collateral, it was already anemic. In time, it would begin to replace the store itself. The long-running Regina pawn shop is closing its doors. That was back when the shop had a whole room, filled with reference materials like old Sears catalogues, used to suss out how much cash to offer for things moving across the counter.Īaron Strauss, owner of City Collateral pawn shop, stands for a portrait inside the shop on Mar. These, he’d later deal to the Tooth Fairy and double his earnings. His grandpa would pay him to pull out his loose baby teeth. But it was also a place where he could conduct business.
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It was a place of intrigue and possibility, with walled-off tunnels connecting to its basement and shelves full of oddities. The 41-year-old’s voice brightens as he recalls long-ago family trips into the city, when he’d visit his grandpa who worked at the shop, opened on Rose Street in 1965. An accordion is tucked away on a shelf, born too early and pawned too late - the world has moved on, from the product and the place. On a counter top, a pair of brass roosters square off in a fighting stance, in sync with each other, but not modern sensibility. Over the years, they might’ve stopped crime.īut what neither they nor Strauss can slow are the hands of a clock.Īfter April 9, the shop will close its doors for good.Īlong a back wall, a row of western saddles sit on the floor, together but forlorn, abandoned in the inner city. Things change, maybe with the exception of the bars on the pawn shop’s windows.
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