Dear Graduating Class of 2013,

We at Queen of PAWNS would like to commend you. Whether you are graduating from high school, college, graduate school or even kindergarten - if you studied day and night or if you just made by on your wits - this rite of passage comes only after commitment, effort and endurance at the least. Some of you may attend commencement and others will forego the formalities of ceremonies. However you approach this transition in your life, don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments.

So what else would a pawn shop have to say to a graduate? We will only talk about what we know. At Queen of PAWNS we know pawn and we have been very fortunate to find success within that industry. Why? Because it is our passion. We are excited by our work and we took our knowledge about pawn to help people. Therefore, our suggestion to you is - do your passion. By doing what we love - collecting and learning about things that interested us from jewelry to tools to electronics and motorized vehicles, accounting, bartering, studying market trends, and genuinely caring about people - all brought us to where we are as a company today. Whether it pays the bills at first or not, doing what brings you joy has its own rewards. The other thing we would like to say to you, Graduate of 2013, is be financially savvy. When you encounter ways to honestly acquire items that you need or want without paying full retail price, do it. You know that saying, “Keeping up with the Jones’?”, well we say, “Be smarter than the Jones’.” Be smart, buy luxury second hand and, if you can at all help it, NEVER pay full retail price.

This concludes our graduation pep talk. Go out in the world and be great. “You may now move your tassels from right to left.”

With applause,

Queen of PAWNS