PAWNBROKER RARELY SURPRISED BY THE ITEMS PEOPLE TRY TO PAWN

CAPE GIRARDEAU - Mention any item and there's probably a good chance that Irene Spinner's been asked by someone if they can pawn it off on her.

Spinner a slender, sprightly woman who deals with the subject of her age by only admitting that it's somewhere over 50 is manager of Plaza Pawn, 2100 William. It's a job she's held for six years counting four years as manager of the former Broadway Pawn at 203 Broadway, which changed its name two years ago when it moved to William Street.

Spinner said working as a pawnbroker is the most interesting job she has ever had. A pawnbroker never knows who or what he or she will see ... and people ask if they can pawn just about anything, she said.

"Somebody wanted us to hold their animal a real long time ago," said Spinner, dressed in a gray business outfit with thin, black stripes. "It was a real expensive parrot, which we don't do; we don't do live things."

Neither does the store accept items like clothing, pianos, or automobiles. Still, Spinner said, people ask whether the store will take those items. Anything the store could be stuck with for good is also out of the question as pawn items.

"I have a great big electrician's ladder in the back that I pawned," she said. A co-worker chided her for taking it, but she said the ladder was "all the poor people had."

One of the more interesting things the store has accepted as a pawn item was a genuine Samurai sword, said Spinner. The person who owned it did return to the store to buy it back, she said.

Spinner said an intoxicated man recently went into the pawnshop, took off his coat and coveralls, and asked to pawn them. The man, who had on jeans underneath, said he needed the money for medicine.

Spinner said she didn't accept the items. "More money to buy booze is what he wanted," she said. "(But) he didn't say that."

Another man recently called the pawn shop to ask if he could hock some beer tappers. Those, too, were turned down.

A glance around Plaza Pawn shows the wide variety of items Spinner and her co-workers deal in. The carpeted store clean and tidy compared to the typical vision of a pawn shop offers martial-arts equipment, jewelry, firearms, compact discs, guitars, typewriters, and home- and car-stereo systems, among other things. A wooden clock with a pendulum, also pawned, hangs just inside the office area.

People from all walks of life go into pawn shops, Spinner said. But a large portion of the store's business, she said, is repeat customers.

Customers will buy items from the store so when they are in dire times and need money they can re-pawn the items at Plaza Pawn. The store sees a lot of seasonal and laid-off factory workers as well as people who have just moved into town and don't have jobs yet, she said.

Quite often, Spinner said, people who are traveling through the area come into the store to pawn an item. Sometimes their car has broken down and they have been forced to stay overnight in a motel. Usually, she said, the people are in the store early in the day so they can get back on the road right away.

She recalled a couple who recently came into the store, said they were on their way to Ohio, and wanted to pawn a 35mm camera. "They just needed some gas money to get on down the line," said Spinner.

A lot of couples who are getting divorces pawn their rings, Spinner said. "Husbands and wives have had fights in here because he'll want to borrow more than she thinks he should," she explained.

Being a woman pawnshop employee gives Spinner somewhat of an edge in dealing with people.

"People who do visit pawn shops say they rarely see a woman working in a pawn shop, so it makes them feel comfortable. Especially the women say that to me constantly," she said.

Spinner worked for a year as the store's part-time bookkeeper before taking over as its manager. She became manager after the store owner's 18-year-old son was injured in a vehicle accident that involved a drunk driver. After his son got out of the hospital, she said, the store owner, Fred Mabry, moved to St. Louis so his son could be near the hospitals where he was getting therapy.

Mabry now lives in Los Angeles, Calif., so his son can be near more specialized doctors.

"I had no idea that I would be doing this," Spinner said. "It was a very tragic reason (how I got into the business)."