LEWISTON – The man with the rifle was at the pawn shop at least once a month. He would exchange his weapon for cash, scrape through financial difficulties, and return to buy the cherished gun back just in time.

Only times have gotten tougher. The man lost his job and the last time he pawned his rifle, he could not afford to get it back. The gun was put up for sale and was gone forever.

“That’s when it hits home,” said Mike Morin of Pine Tree Trading in Lewiston. “You have regular customers who are having all these problems. They have to eat. They have to pay rent and pay their bills.”

Among the regular customers at Pine Tree is a woman on dialysis trying to support her 12-year-old son. She has always been able to make ends meet, but not lately. Fuel costs and other symptoms of a bad economy leave her short of money on a regular basis.

Once, twice, three times a month, the woman is at the pawn shop, selling off possessions to get the next bill paid or cash for the next meal.

“She has to pawn things just to make it month to month,” Morin said. “There just isn’t enough money to make ends meet.”

And so it goes around the country. Laid off and strapped for cash, people are parting with things they possessed in happier times but now have to sacrifice for more practical purposes.

In pawn shops everywhere, you will see the symbols of hard times. Wedding rings glisten from a case. Once-treasured golf clubs, skis and state-of-the-art electronics are heaped high in every corner.

Pawn shops are seeing so much business, they have to decline to buy a lot of the items being offered.

“We’d need a hundred-thousand-foot warehouse if we bought everything,” said Marcel Morin, who owns Pine Tree Trading.

Across Lisbon Street at the Lewiston Pawn Shop, trading is also high. People are selling their goods more than usual, but they are also buying.

“This industry is rather recession-proof,” said owner Rick LaChapelle. “When the economy is bad, people are selling stuff, but they are also buying. They are looking to pinch pennies and save some money. They come in because they are finding things are cheaper here than at the box stores.”

Tools ‘everywhere’

Regular customers have been joined by a new class of people as the foul state of economic affairs lingers on.

“We’re seeing a lot more middle-class customers,” said Mike Morin. “There are obvious signs in the business that things are tough all over.”

In tough economic times, the first things to go are usually playthings: golf clubs, jet-skis, jewelry.

Pawnbrokers say they greet many clients who come in with bags, boxes or chests filled with all the gold they could scrounge up around the house.

“People are really cashing in on the fact that gold is at an all-time high,” Mike Morin said.

And diamonds.

LaChapelle at the Lewiston Pawn Shop says he buys and sells a lot of them. One-carat diamonds are selling particularly well. After all, if you pop the question to the one you love, you have to produce a ring no matter how tight things have gotten. And if things go sour, that ring might be the first thing to go.

LaChapelle also has received a good share of boats, all-terrain vehicles, even a hot dog stand.

“The amount of items and the variety is amazing,” he said.

But at Pine Tree Trading, tools are coming through the door more than anything else. So many tools are being pawned these days that Marcel Morin says he isn’t taking any more unless they’re something new or hard to find.

The tools range from simple household sets to massive power tools. Contractors lose jobs and have to sell off equipment to pay bills. Aspiring repairmen no longer see prospects for full-time work and so carefully assembled tool kits are lugged down to the pawn shops. More signs of an ailing economy.

“Tools are everywhere,” said Paul Berube, manager of Webster’s Trading in Auburn. “It’s an almost everyday item. We’re seeing a lot of TVs, too.”

Berube is noticing another trend, one that might be viewed with alarm or as another sign of the times:

“The only things that are really selling well are guns and ammo,” he said.

Like other businesses, pawn shops cannot afford to sit back and conduct business as usual, LaChapelle said. When the economy changes, they have to adapt. They adjust the amount they are willing to pay for certain items and how low they are willing to set their sale prices.

“You have to evolve,” LaChapelle said. “If you don’t change with the economy, if you don’t roll with the punches, you’ll be out of business in no time.”