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PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
Mar 21, 2005
 
THIS BIZ IS A CITY INSTITUTION
CARVER W. REED & CO. STILL THRIVING AFTER 145 YEARS
 
BY RONNIE POLANECZKY 
 
THREE WEEKS AGO, we heard that the 144-year-old Strawbridge's name will probably die in the latest department-store mega-merger. 
 
And two weeks ago, we learned that MCP, 150-year-old home of the world's first medical school for women, is closing its doors. 
 
So this week, it's a relief to announce that 145-year-old Carver W. Reed and Co. Inc., is alive and well.  And going nowhere. 
 
"Where would I go? This place is an institution," said owner Tod Gordon at a tiny 145th-anniversary celebration he'd invited me to. 
 
He said similar words 11 years ago, when I wrote a story about how his shop had managed to survive for more than a century in the pawn business. 
 
He got a tad testy, back then, when I referred to his place as a pawnshop. The term conjured images of scuzzball merchants selling used guitars and
rusted toasters, ripping off the poor, fencing stolen goods for the unscrupulous. 
 
"That's not what we do at Carver W. Reed," he'd said indignantly, noting that only jewelry was pawn-worthy at his place. "We do collateral loans. " 
 
Then, as now, his long, narrow shop looked like a quaint, rehabbed bank, its ancient, ar-moire-like safes sitting behind old-fashioned, iron-bar teller-stations, manned by clerks who'd been there for years. 
 
And his customers, he said, aren't just working folks who need a fast fifty to cover the rent or a few grand for a casino whirl. His record books are also crowded with better-heeled patrons. 
 
Like the former football star who pawned a Super Bowl ring (which he never retrieved; it sold for $6,500). And the Chestnut Hill matron who pulled up in a chauffeured Rolls Royce every year at tax time for a loan against her baubles until her mutual-fund check arrived the next month. And the weeping, laid-off CEO who knew he could borrow money against his wife's jewelry and not read about it in the Daily News' gossip pages the next day. 
 
Then there was the time that Harry Connick Jr. waltzed in and bought a $40,000 diamond engagement ring for his Victoria Secret-model honey (because Tod also buys and sells unpawned jewelry). 
 
But you can only imagine what people needed loans for back in 1860, when founder Carver W. Reed opened his shop on Market Street, across from City Hall. 
 
It moved into a squat, three-story building at 10th and Sansom in 1888, and it's still there. Which is kind of a miracle, given how neighboring storefronts were eventually bulldozed for parking garages and the high-rises of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. 
 
The original Carver Reed hired Tod's grandfather, who bought the business (and kept the name) and passed it to Tod's father, who passed it to him. 
 
That means that over 145 years, only two families, at two locations, have overseen the business. Think of it - the Civil War, a World War, a Depression, another World War, the '60s, the turn of a new century - have all come and gone in that time. 
 
In the go-go '90s, Tod had many chances to sell his operations to a few pawn-shop chains whose owners were eager to appropriate the reputation of the well-regarded Carver W. Reed name. But Tod resisted. 
 
"This is a business of trust," he says. "I'm the owner, I'm right here. Customers have been coming to us for years. Would they trust a company whose owner is a zillion miles away? Would you? "
 
It's ironic, isn't it? Tod works in an industry in which everything is evaluated for its possible sale price. But when he looked at all that his company's name stood for, he deemed it priceless. 
 
Eleven years ago, I found the Carver W. Reed business to be merely decent and charming, serving a wacky parade of uniquely Philly characters you couldn't envision unless you were drunk. 
 
But last week, as I toted up the names of once-beloved Philly institutions that are no more - Wanamaker, Buten, Lit, Schmidt, Levis, Baldwin and Stetson - I couldn't help feeling a wave of gratitude for the little shop at 10th and Sansom. 
 
Gratitude that it hadn't gone under by going too big, or by selling out, or by not adapting. Gratitude that it hadn't been snuffed into oblivion by corporate moguls or the steam-rolling powers of a global economy. 
 
Gratitude, basically, that it not only hadn't changed as the world changed around it, but was actually doing better than ever. 
 
Business is so good, in fact, that, in honor of the store's 145th anniversary, Gordon gave out $145 gift certificates to the mothers of the first 145 babies born in January at Jefferson Hospital, which has been on the block almost as long as his store has. 
 
It felt so good to do it, he repeated the process in February, and again this month. 
 
I was there this week when he presented the final certificate to a new mom in the hospital's maternity ward. Joining him were City Controller Jonathan Saidel, assistant city rep Bonnie Grant, some Jefferson PR people and a Channel 6 cameraman, who shot a few seconds of footage for the noon news. I'm not sure anyone even saw it. 
 
A few minutes later, I walked Tod back to his store and said hello to the same clerks I greeted the first time I walked through the doors, 11 years ago. 
 
Times might change. 
 
But not, thank God, at Carver W. Reed. 

THE PAWNBROKER  ....... PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE...AUGUST 1994
 
Tod Gordon doesn't run just another sleazy pawnshop. Thank god.
 
"....The average pawnshop loan in Pennsylvania is 50 to 75 bucks, but transactions at Gordon's place average about $600, and he's brokered deals as high as $110,000.
....." Tod's shop is one of the most respected in the business", says Joe Leonard, owner of a South Street pawnshop.
...The ticket to Carver Reed's longevity has been a quirky,genteel ambience and tight lipped staff, a potent combination that's attracted an affluent clientele who'd rather die than let it be known that their messy divorce, kid's drug habit or reckless spending spree has gotten them into a financial jam.This is where a weeping, laid-off CEO knew he could borrow money against his wife's jewelry.....
.....It's where an indicted and broke politician brought his valuables before heading off to the Big House. It's where a former Dallas Cowboy unloaded his Super-Bowl ring - no questions asked. And it's where a chauffeured  Rolls-Royce deposits a Chestnut Hill matron every year at tax time to pledge her gems, which she retrieves a month later when her mutual-fund interest check arrives in the mail. All of them know they'll be able to pawn their finery with a level of dignity not found at lesser shops....."

PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
Dec. 9, 1999
 
GIVE & TAKE ON JEWELERS ROW
By Ronnie Polaneczky 
 
..."Look at this stuff - it's beautiful," says Irv, gesturing toward Carver Reed's windows, where Rolexes and diamond rings snuggle up against bejeweled bracelets and cuff links whose owners were unable to repay whatever money their baubles once netted them.