Dolly Shops – A Mercantile of Crime and Desperation

When Money is tight and the children are hungry a poor man has to do something to make ends meet. For many of the Victorians living in poverty this meant pawning a little used item, but what if nothing you had was acceptable to a licensed pawn shop? Then you go to an unlicensed pawn shop!

In the gloomy back alleys of London’s bad neighborhoods, in the disused house or the badly maintained storefront without a sign were the dolly shops. A dolly shop was an unlicensed pawnshop whose operators (sometimes called uncles) were not as particular about the quality of the item they paid for or where they came from. Aside from the piles of clothing, shoddy tools, and other house wares, those in the know could identify a dolly shop by the black faced doll hanging in the front window.

“As we look into these suspicious looking shops we see large piles of female apparel, with articles of men's dress heaped around the walls, or deposited in bundles and paper packages on shelves around the shop, with strings of clothes hung across the apartment to dry, or offered for sale.”
“In the evening these dolly shops are dimly lighted, and look still more gloomy and forbidding than during the day.”
- Henry Mayhew, “Those that will not work, comprising; Prostitutes. Thieves. Swindlers. Beggars”

As dolly shops did not comply with the laws regarding pawnshops, merchandise being hocked was usually only held a week before being put up for sale (or less if a buyer was interested) and the person pawning the item often only got a sixth or an eighth of its value. When an item was redeemed by its owner the interest was higher than the regulated standards (2-3 pence per shilling contrasted with the ½ pence per 2 shillings). Many dolly shops operated more like a fence, openly accepting stolen materials and arranging shipments of precious metals to be melted into resalable bars. An established dolly shop might even disappear if the police were aware of its presence.

A dolly shop is an atmospheric location that can peg the desperation and cunning of the rookery. Its use in a scenario can elegantly move the plot forward. If a shady item, or information and appraisal on stolen property is needed, asking the shop’s uncle gives fresh leads. Need a stolen item to enter the story, or a cursed bit of treasure to plague anyone unlucky enough to buy it? Head to the dolly shop.

One of the greatest reasons to use any kind of pawn shop in an adventure is they come with their own clue trail: the pawn ticket. Any customer that hocked goods for cash is given a pawn ticket so they could buy back their item. A reputable pawn shop could have their name printed on it and a lot number, a lesser shop could just be a scrap of paper with a signature torn in two.
The discovery of a pawn ticket gives an easy path to follow. Obviously the path is harder if the ticket doesn’t have the shop’s name on it. That’s where Local Expert, Streetwise, and Contacts come in handy

It would be a waste to ignore the creepy doll hanging in the window. A dolly shop run by a gutter conjuror could have eyes in the doll that follow passersby and act like a security camera. Or if it’s made of porcelain it could act as a kind of scrying glass.
How the doll is dressed could signify what gang the shop is run by or what illegal goods it specializes in.

Plot Hook Idea
An impoverished contacts of the party was been forced to hock a precious family heirloom. Nearly a week later the contact is ready to buy it back but the police have been alerted of the dolly shop’s presence and the shop has changed location. Can the players find the shop before the day is up and the heirloom goes on sale?
Is it a coincidence the shop disappeared after the heirloom was hocked?

Possible Merchandise To Be Bought Or Sold in a Dolly Shop
Assorted Rags (to be sold to paper or fertilizer mills)
Bed Linen (brought in on the maid’s day off)
Bones (to be made into soap or fertilizer)
Bonnets (varying degrees of fashion and expense)
Books (Magazines, unbound books, journals, legers)
Boots (holes in soul, ripped leather, ill fitting)
Candle ends (could be melted and reformed)
Cheap sweets (may be homemade, terrible, or gone off)
Cheap watches (broken, missing pieces, scratched casings, or very low quality)
Children’s petticoats (torn, stained)
Collars (bent, dirty)
Empty Bottles (brought in on servants, and wait staff’s day off)
Food Castoffs (leftovers, fat cutoffs)
Furniture (table with missing leg, footstool with ripped cushion)
Gowns (old fashioned, homemade, stained)
Gloves (cotton, fingerless)
Handkerchiefs or Neckerchiefs (cotton, most likely stolen)
Iron and other metals (collected one piece at a time to be melted down)
Kitchen Supplies (jars, moldy flour, grease, pots and pans)
Knives (pocket knives, may be stolen, hocked knives of working men)
Men’s Overcoat (suspicious rips and holes, warm but shabby)
Old Jewelry (stolen, old, broken chains,)
Paper (could be sold shops to wrap goods in, everyone has a use for spare paper)
Petticoats (brown spots on white cotton, torn lace)
Pictures (paintings, sketches, posters, advertisements)
Pipes (clay, wooden, cracked, smelly)
Shawls (thread bare, spotted, damp)
Shirtfronts (crumpled, worn)
Tobacco (small bent tins, wet plugs wrapped in paper, may be mixed with sawdust)
Utensils (assorted spoons, knives, forks, most likely not silver, brought on the cook’s day off)
Workman’s Tools (cracked, bent, rusty, hocked to afford the next step of a project)