Pawnshops for 1 Percent Turn Conspicuous Consumption Into Cash

Last year, Marc Kaye suffered a cash shortage. He had tuition to pay at three colleges -- including Harvard and Columbia -- and his insurance business wasn’t generating enough commissions to cover the bills.

Then Kaye remembered a friend in London who had pawned his Patek Philippe watch with a company called Borro Ltd. to cover a similar gap. Unlike traditional pawnshops, filled with guns and personal computers, Borro lends against luxury items. It’s the pawnbroker to the 1 percent, Bloomberg Pursuits magazine will report in its Holiday 2013 issue.