Imagine an antique dealer - let’s call her Caroline - studying the inventory for an upcoming, rather high-end auction. Suddenly, she sees something that sets her heart-rate racing and her hands trembling: up for auction is a pristine condition “Penny Black” stamp dating from the very year in which this famous stamp was first issued, 1840.
Caroline quickly realised that she was looking at a real find. The value of the stamp was enhanced not only by its immaculate condition but by the fact that it was an “original gum” or o.g. specimen - in other words, it had never been used and still had its adhesive gum intact. That wasn’t all: this particular stamp bore the letters “V” and “R” on the top left and right corners, telling Caroline that it had been a “VR Official,” intended for official mail only. It was prepared for use but was never issued - a fact which added to its rarity.
The stamp was expected to fetch up to £32,000 at auction, and she had a client who she knew would be desperate to own it. The problem, however, was that Caroline had just £10,000 in readily available cash in her business account.
In a moment of inspiration, Caroline realised that she had the means to purchase the stamp; it’s just that it wasn’t in the form of ready cash. As keen philatelists themselves, Caroline and her husband had picked up an exceedingly rare, unused 1967 o.g. set of British Christmas stamps around ten years ago. A mint condition bottom corner marginal block of twelve, with only six mint examples in existence according to Pierron records, the set was now worth in the region of £34,000.
Caroline decided to sell her prized possession to purchase the Penny Black, re-purchasing it once her client had paid her. However, had she come to peer-to-peer lender Unbolted instead, she could have saved herself a lot of money and a lot of hassle.
As a digital online-only platform, Unbolted has none of the overheads associated with running bricks-and-mortar premises like pawnbrokers. That means that the interest rates for our secured asset loan are unbeatable.
Visit the websites of leading pawnbrokers, and you’ll see that their representative APRs range from a stinging 60 percent (Hopkins and Jones) to a heart-stopping 162.54 percent (Ramsdens). Unbolted’s APR? It's only 40.3 percent, just about the lowest rate out there.
You don’t even need to visit us. Just upload a photograph of your valuable possession along with any verifying documents, and our expert valuation partners will provide us with an indicative loan offer within hours. Following that, you simply send the asset to our London office using our next-day courier service. Within hours of our valuers examining your asset, we’re usually in a position to transfer funds electronically into your bank account.
We’ll never subject you to a credit search. Your creditworthiness is irrelevant to our lenders, as you’ve provided all the security we need by placing your asset under our control. We’ll look after it in safe storage until you can pay us back (and if you want to repay early, we won’t penalise you). If the worse comes to the worse, we’ll sell it at auction, returning any money raised in excess of the originally agreed value to you.
