“I need $3,000,” Tito Vazquez, 45, says as he looks at his gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycle. “But the economy's a mess right now and my credit cards are all maxed out.”

Which brings him here, to Collateral Lender, a few blocks east of ultra-posh Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills. In short, it is a pawn shop. Like most pawn shops in Los Angeles - home to not one but two failed mortgage lenders, Countrywide Financial and IndyMac Bank - it is doing a roaring trade.

For Mr Vazquez, that is not good news: Collateral Lender has so many Harleys it does not have room for any more. The manager sends him to another broker in a different part of town, where with a bit of luck he will be able to get a short-term $3,000 float using his “hog” as collateral. The state-regulated interest rate is likely to be about 7 per cent, although pawn shops have a knack of getting around this by charging other fees.

“I know I'll be coming right back for my Harley,” says Mr Vazquez, who lives an hour from Beverly Hills and needs the cash to pursue an urgent “business opportunity”. “If I wasn't coming back that would be different. I've pawned this bike a few times.”

The recent boom in America's pawnbroking business has come as something as a surprise - not least to the brokers. During the economic go-go years of the mid-2000s, the concept of lending money against items such as electric guitars, gold watches and family heirlooms seemed to have been made obsolete by 0 per cent interest rates, lax credit checks and the instant liquidity offered by the likes of eBay and craigslist.

No longer. With America's banks refusing to lend money even to wealthy customers there is now an overwhelming demand for an alternative. In Beverly Hills, where keeping up appearances is all-important, Collateral Lender is only too happy to help. “We have a special entrance for celebrities or high-profile individuals around the back so they don't have to use the front door,” the manager, a former jeweller who asks to be identified only as Pete (“for security reasons”), says. “We talk to 'em on a very private basis. The bottom line is that we're here to help people out.”

Until recently, he adds, there was a 1969 Rolls-Royce in the store.

Unlike most pawn shops, which deal typically in loans of less than $100, Collateral Lender frequently doles out floats in the tens of thousands, all of it underwritten with the kind of objects that can be found only in the wealthiest enclaves of Los Angeles. Brokers typically make money either by buying items and reselling them, or by lending 50 per cent of the value of items left as collateral. If the borrower defaults, the collateral is sold to cover the cost, although Pete insists this rarely happens.

“We haven't had any private jets yet, but we've had a half-million-dollar racing boat, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, an Emmy, a couple of Grammys, gold records, platinum records, Cartier watches, Rolexes,” Pete says. “This can be a very interesting job.”

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