pawnable (panabl)

[ pawnbroker (pân' brō" kèr), n. [ fixed rate of interest. - Pawnbroker's balls, the three gold-colored balls which usually form the sign of a pawnshop. The characteristic feature of the coat of arms of the Medici family in Lombardy was a group of balls, or disks, variously characterized in different accounts (perhaps representing different branches of the family) as six red balls, three gold balls or blue balls, and three coins, and variously explained as representing pills, by way of play upon the family name, or as representing the money of bankers, the coins being indicated by spheres so as to present a circle in whichever direction looked at. It seems to have been from this armorial bearing that three golden balls hung in a cluster and three blue balls painted on a white ground were early adopted as the sign of money lenders, corresponding to the existing emblem of pawn It is not generally known that the three Blue Balls at the Pawn - brokers ' shops are the ancient arms of Lombardy. The Lombards were the first money-brokers in Europe. Lamb, Elia, Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago.