12/10/2009 National Inquirer 12/10/2009 Los Angeles Times 12/10/2009 Los Angeles   BRING YOUR FAMILY JEWELS HERE By Rochelle Levy Since when does a pawnshop offer a 1931 Model A Ford, Lalique crystal and Rolex watches – all amid plush red carpeting on a green marble floor? Why, when it’s in Beverly Hills, darling. Specifically, 14-month-old Collateral Lender (no lowbrow pawnshop, indeed) at the northwest corner of Robertson and Wilshire. And you won’t find the luckless down-and-out sliding their old TV sets across the counter here. According to Collateral Lender’s manager Tal Shmargal, his well-heeled clientele includes “actors, producers, directors, you name it,” who need not just $25 to keep the landlord happy, but up to $100,000 to maintain their posh lifestyle. Celeb transactions are handled discreetly in what Shmargal calls “the VIP room,” which is accessed via an entrance at the rear of the shop. Except for Evel Knievel. “He came in the front and wanted us to publicize his name,” Shmargal recalls. “He was having trouble with the IRS and wanted them to know he was pawning his belongings to pay them.” The goodies on display are out of pawn – which means their owners failed to reclaim them – and thus, for sale. Jet Skis, ATVs and a 1964 Corvette convertible compete for attention with a caseful of sparkling diamond rings and gold jewelry. But the really amazing stuff is stashed in secret storage sites in Beverly Hills and Van Nuys: three helicopters, four Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari Testarossa, a wooden sauna and a sailboat, as well as a vaultful of jewelry, including $5 million worth of diamonds, gold and pearls pawned by “a very, very, very wealthy lady who makes $45,000 a month from her own company, and it’s still not enough for her.” The brainchild of owner Sam Gonen, an Israeli who for seven years has run a more typical typewriter-and-VCR-type pawnshop in decidedly less swank Van Nuys, Collateral lends at state-regulated interest rates, which start at 12.5 percent and go higher depending on how much is lent and for how long. And with their B.H. recession-era business booming, Gonen and Shmargal are thinking national. “Our long-range plan is to be the biggest pawnshop chain in the country,” Shmargal says. But they do have their limits. “I recently got a call from a guy who had two six-foot-long boa constrictors. And we get calls every week about racehorses,” he says. “But anything that eats, I can’t take it.” 12/10/2009 Forbes 12/8/2009 Chicago Tribune