Massachusetts Once Had a Chain of Pawn Shop-Style Stores That Had Everything

Once upon a time, Massachusetts had a chain of stores in which you could find a little bit of everything, but you never really knew what to expect from one visit to the next.

It was the late 1990s, and Cash Converters had multiple locations around the Bay State, including one in Brockton and another in Raynham. It’s hard to describe exactly what Cash Converters was, but I like to think of it as a pawn shop on steroids.

However, Cash Converters, at least as I remember it, was different from a regular pawn shop. Pawn shops allow you to “pawn” an item in exchange for a short-term loan; the idea is that you leave the item, you take the money, and then you pay back the loan (with some interest) in order to get your item back. If you don’t repay the loan, the pawn shop keeps and re-sells your item.

Cash Converters, on the other hand, didn’t allow you to pawn items. You simply sold them to the store, and the store then re-sold it to bargain hunters such as myself.

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That being said, there was always something new and different in the store, depending on what people had brought in to sell. I’m not sure how they determined what they would pay for an item or how much to charge when re-selling it; all I know is that I found lots of great deals on things like video games, electronics, tools, CDs and tons of other items.

One of the best items I ever got at Cash Converters was a Sony Watchman handheld color television for just $40. I got a lot of use out of that thing watching Patriots games while out and about on a Sunday.

I also built up a nice collection of Playstation games back in the day as well, and I probably grabbed some CDs or cassette tapes now and then.

I think one of the biggest items I ever saw in a Cash Converters was in the Brockton location, when there was a dirt bike in the store for sale.

Here’s a bit of a strange story: when I was a kid, my grandfather would tape movies off television with his VCR. He built up a collection of hundreds of tapes over the years, which he all had labeled in his own unique way.

When he passed away in 1996, somehow his videotape collection ended up at the Cash Converters in Brockton. I was heartbroken that I didn’t get a chance to get them and take them home for myself, if for nothing more than to hold onto them because they meant so much to him.

A man went into Cash Converters and purchased them all in a large lot. More than a decade later, I just happened to be back in Randolph, where my grandparents lived, to visit their graves. I stopped at a yard sale not far from the cemetery and there, in a cardboard box, were all of his tapes. I bought the whole box and walked back to the car, tears streaming from my eyes.

Cash Converters may not have been around very long – I’d guess they closed up shop sometime in the early 2000s – but at least I got that special memory thanks to one of my favorite stores of all time.