GAMBLERS' SADDEST STORIES TOLD AT STONEY'S LOANS.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

Of all the sad stories in Las Vegas, Henry Kronberg hears some of the saddest.

Kronberg owns and manages Stoney's Loans and Jewelry Co., the city's oldest pawn shop, where down-on-their-luck gamblers have gone since the 1930s to trade their possessions for enough cash to make just one more stake at the gaming tables - or to finance the trip home.

``Behind everything you see is a story,'' Kronberg says, gesturing toward his store full of fur coats, golf clubs, cameras, diamond jewelry, television sets, luggage and other items. ``I'm actually not interested in the stories. It's all the same to me; it's just merchandise and I lend money on it or buy it. I don't ask why they come here. But people seem to want to tell me the stories anyway.''

Asked how some of the items came to be in the small First Street store, - which stands under a dusty awning in the shadow of the Las Vegas Club and a casino advertising ``The Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch'' - the pawn broker hesitates.

``We don't like to break a confidence and embarrass anybody,'' he demurs.

But when pressed, Kronberg says the saddest story he was ever told was that of a man who had left his home and family in Rumania 20 years earlier and moved to Australia. Finally, he scraped enough money together to return home to see friends and family. He bought his airline tickets and had his camera ready to capture the fond reunion.

``Unfortunately, on the way from Australia, he stopped in Las Vegas,'' Kronberg recalls. ``Beginner's luck, he won. He was so impressed with his winnings, he started gambling more. He lost everything, all his money to go home to Rumania. He came to me to pawn his camera for enough money to get to the airport so he could go back to Australia. I never heard from him again.''

Stoney's Loans is one of 23 pawnshops in a town where the name of the game is cash-in-hand and plenty of it. It lends cash for a portion of the value of an item, generally what the shop can expect to sell it for if it is not redeemed. Loans are for a period of four months, but if the merchandise's owner doesn't have the cash to redeem it, the interest on the loan can be paid every four months and the loan extended indefinitely.

Kronberg, the store's third owner, bought Stoney's 36 years ago. In his gray Christian Dior shirt and black and white Oleg Cassini tie, a swing-down jeweler's loupe affixed to his eyeglasses, he is the picture of the successful businessman.

Colleen Irvine, chief of the Las Vegas Police Department's 10-person pawn shop detail, sees Kronberg as the epitome of the modern pawnbroker - and his shop as the Cadillac of local pawnshops.

``What we find now is that pawn shops are run like any retail store,'' Irvine explains. ``They don't want to be known any more as legalized fences. Stoney's is great. It's older, very established. They have regular clients they deal with for years and years. And Henry is pretty much of an expert in the field of jewelry.''

Irvine estimates that 80 percent of pawn shop customers are Las Vegas residents or transients, and that tourists ``who need to unload their watch to get back home'' after a disaster at the gaming tables account for only about 20 percent of the loan business.

But tourists account for as much as 60 percent of Stoney's Loans customers, perhaps because the shop is so old and so well-known, Kronberg theorizes.

As word of the shop has spread, Kronberg says he often deals with tourists from Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Norway and other countries. One tour guide now even includes Stoney's on his regular city-tour route.

Many come just to look around. Some buy unredeemed merchandise. And some seek loans, telling sad stories about how they came to need cash.

Kronberg admits he sometimes offers a customer a bit more cash than he might otherwise if the story is extra-sad.

``It's not true that a pawnbroker has a heart of stone,'' Kronberg says. ``We bend a little if the story is good.''

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Photo

Photo: Henry Kronberg, owner of Las Vegas' oldest pawn shop, among fur coats, musical instruments and other merchandise.

Carol Bidwell/Daily News