In theory, a pawn ticket would be ideal collateral for a loan. The value is printed on the ticket and the pawned object it represents is easily worth three times that amount. In practice, however, anyone who loaned money to a stranger with a pawn ticket as collateral found himself the owner of a very expensive piece of paper.

The pawn-ticket game had the same appeal as all con games—the lure of easy money—but it was simpler than most. The holder of a pawn ticket, claiming to be in desperate need of money, was willing to pay high interest for a short-term loan, using the ticket, worth far more than the borrowed amount, as collateral. Finding a willing lender was not difficult; sometimes just a classified ad in a newspaper did the trick:

ATTENTION—$30 wanted immediately; return $50 week; security given salable $200. YOUMANS, Herald Harlem.

Mabel Wray, "Queen of the Pawn-Ticket Players."

Anyone who answers this ad will be visited by a gentleman with a clever story and a pawn ticket or two to be used as collateral. He will emphasize that the jewelry in pawn is worth far more than $200 which will guarantee his return in a week with the promised $50. Of course, the borrower does not return and when the lender redeems the pawn ticket he finds that he is not able to sell the jewelry for anything near the $200 it had cost him to get it out of pawn.

The pawn-ticket game worked because the conmen were in league with the pawnbrokers who furnished them with tickets and who made a sizable profit if the bogus tickets were redeemed.  The game was so lucrative that a number of people in New York City were able to make their living this way.

Hotels were another good source of marks for the pawn-ticket games. Traveling  men proved to be extremely trusting of newly acquired drinking buddies and young ladies they had known for only one evening. In the 1870s, Mable Wray was known as the “Queen of Pawn-Ticket Players” for her ability to secure loans from married men away from their wives, using worthless pawn tickets as collateral.

Sources:

• Cochrane, Charles H.. "Humbugs Labelled "Business Opportunities"." Moody's Magazine: The Investors' Monthly May 1906: 666.
• Farley, Phil. Criminals of America, or, Tales of the lives of thieves enabling every one to be his own detective : with portraits, making a complete rogues' gallery. New York: Author's edition, 1876.

How the fashionable women of “sawciety” get their complexions whit the assistance of a hypodermic injection. [more]

A New Way to Color the Cheeks. Avery clever Philadelphia lady and the wife of a popular naval officer has encountered a new idea of great social importance. She was running on about society matters generally, when a gentleman remarked that a certain young lady possessed remarkably pretty cheeks, having that peculiarly lovely tinge of pink rarely seen among fashionable women, and which cannot be imitated by the brush.

“Oh pshaw! You men don’t know anything about it. The same effect is now produced with a syringe.”

“The syringe!” he exclaimed.

“Yes; why, don’t you know that fashionable women restore color in their cheeks by hypodermic injection? Thy have a small syringe, the same as used for administering an anesthetic, and with this they inject a coloring fluid beneath the skin. Peach-blow cheeks are very desirable, and if there is no blood there to make them, the minute veins can be forced full of coloring matter which answers for blood. The trouble is it is only temporary and will eventually injure the skin permanently. But what of that! Drunkenness is only temporary and will eventually ruin those who indulge so why sneer at the woman who wishes to look interesting for an hour? There are women I know who habitually resort to the syringe for their color. When the effect is gone—that is, when the coloring matter is absorbed in the skin and carried away by the blood—the face is absolutely ghastly. The skillful use of the instrument is quite disastrous. There are the daughters of admiral ------, both of whom use it. By nature they haven’t a particle of color. One of them—well, if you ever see her you will see a sight! I mean if your ever see her in daylight. The coloring matter forced into the chees has been taken up in the glands beneath the eyes and carried into the end of the nose. She looks like—like—what do you call it? Yes, and old ‘bum!’ It is too funny for anything! There’s the other difficulty, don’t you see, you can’t tell where the color is going to finally show up.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 6, 1886.