Telltale Incorporated (trade name: Telltale Games) was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following LucasArts' decision to leave the adventure game genre. Telltale established itself to focus on adventure games using a novel episodic release schedule over digital distribution, creating its own game engine, the Telltale Tool, to support this. It closed in October 2018 after filing for bankruptcy protection.

Telltale's initial successes were on games using intellectual properties with small but dedicated fan bases, including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Homestar Runner, and Bone. Around 2010, the studio gained more lucrative licensing opportunities in more mainstream properties such as Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. Telltale's critical breakout game came in 2012's The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series of the same name. It introduced a more narrative-directed approach that diverged from the standard adventure game "point and click" gameplay. The Walking Dead gave the player the ability to make choices that could affect how future events in the game or its sequels played out, effectively allowing players to craft their own personalized take on the offered story. Nearly all of Telltale's adventure games afterwards featured this player choice-driven approach. The Walking Dead was critically praised and considered to have revitalized the adventure game genre since LucasArts' departure from it in 2004.

Telltale continued to expand with new licensing deals for episodic adventure games over the next few years, including for Minecraft, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but the rate of production created a "crunch time" culture behind the scenes, leaving poor company morale, little room for creativity to veer from the formula set by The Walking Dead or improvements on the Telltale Tool. A management shakeup occurred in early 2017, with CEO Bruner stepping down, and Pete Hawley, formerly of Zynga, brought in to fix Telltale's problems. Internal restructuring led to a layoff of 25% of the company's staff in November 2017, along with an emphasis to slow down game production to improve production quality, retire the Telltale Tool for a more standard game engine, and seek other lucrative properties to develop for. This resulted in an early 2018 deal with Netflix in which Telltale would adapt its Minecraft: Story Mode into an interactive program for the streaming service, and Netflix licensing the rights to Telltale for an adventure game based on its show Stranger Things.

In the midst of releasing The Walking Dead: The Final Season, the company was forced to initiate a "majority studio closure" after their last investor had pulled out of funding. Telltale announced on September 21, 2018, that it had let go of all but 25 of its staff as part of this closure, with the remaining skeleton crew completing specific obligations, such as finishing the Minecraft: Story Mode project porting to Netflix. Telltale Games filed for assignment in October 2018. Many assets were later acquired by LCG Entertainment, which revived the Telltale Games name as part of its business in August 2019, retaining many of the company's previous licenses and offering former staff freelance positions.

History

Foundation and initial growth (2004–2010)
Telltale Games was founded in San Rafael, California, by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, a group of former LucasArts employees who worked on the studio's adventure games. In March 2004, LucasArts recognized that there were "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" that made adventure games too risky to release, and canceled work on two sequels of previous adventure games, Full Throttle 2 and Sam & Max: Freelance Police, as well as laying off many of those developers. Bruner, Connors and Molander were not among the layoffs, but felt that the change of direction at LucasArts was not favorable, and departed the company later that year to found Telltale Games July 2004. The studio opening was announced on October 4. The name "Telltale" was selected by Bruner as the three envisioned themselves creating more adventure games but de-emphasizing puzzle elements in favor of narrative aspects, telling a tale to the user. Technology attorney Ira P. Rothken negotiated publishing and licensing deals for the company.

The company's initial goal was to develop a new Sam & Max game in an episodic format. Grossman said that Telltale identified that Sam & Max had a small but dedicated audience allowing them to develop a title that would be successful in reaching out to this group and not requiring them to seek out a bigger license that would have incurred more development costs. Developing a Sam & Max game required both development of tools to produce the game, and the license to make it. At the time of the studio's founding, the license for Sam & Max was still held by LucasArts, who refused to negotiate a deal nor license the work on Sam & Max: Freelance Police for Telltale to complete it. Telltale waited out the licensing period until around mid-2005, after which Steve Purcell, Sam & Maxs creator, immediately offered the license to Telltale.

Until they could get to that point, the studio developed other games to bring in revenue and keep the studio afloat. On February 11, 2005, the company released their first game, Telltale Texas Hold'em, a poker card game simulator which was intended primarily to test the Telltale Tool, their in-house game engine. They used the license around Jeff Smith's Bone comic book series to test the episodic format. Though initially planned for a five-episode series, Telltale only released two episodes in 2005 and 2006 and the remaining episode had been canceled. Alongside Bone, Telltale developed a series of games for Ubisoft around the CSI television series, including CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, CSI: Hard Evidence, CSI: Deadly Intent, and CSI: Fatal Conspiracy; though these games were also developed as episodes, they were each released in single packages. Outside of Ubisoft, few other publishers were interested in distributing Telltale's early games, forcing them to turn to their own distribution system.

Once they had secured the rights to Sam & Max, Telltale set about to making this game with an episodic approach, with episodes planned to be released on a tight monthly basis through their partner, GameTap. Sam & Max: Season One was considered a success for the company, and considered one of the first successful demonstration of an episodic release in video games. The success led to additional funding through two rounds of angel investment, including Matthew Le Merle and members of angel group Keiretsu Forum. The studio created a second season for Sam & Max, and found additional niche intellectual property areas, including Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner, to continue the episodic adventure game format. When Darrell Rodriguez became CEO of LucasArts in 2008, he wanted to see the old LucasArts adventure properties flourish, leading to a license for Telltale to create a new game in the Monkey Island series, Tales of Monkey Island. Telltale was also able to expand their release platforms beyond personal computers, with releases of these games on various consoles at the time.

To supplement their normal episodic games, Telltale created a pilot program in early 2010 to explore one-off games that would explore other gameplay and storytelling approaches that could eventually be incorporated into their episodic games. The first game, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, a puzzle-solving game in collaboration with Graham Annable, was released in June 2010, while Poker Night at the Inventory, a crossover poker game featuring characters from Sam and Max, Homestar Runner, Valve's Team Fortress 2, and the webcomic Penny Arcade, was released late in 2010. Telltale followed up Puzzle Agent with a sequel, Puzzle Agent 2, in 2011. In 2013, Telltale continued the series with Poker Night 2. The Walking Dead started out as a pilot program game that was known internally as the "zombie prototype". In general, few of these games brought in large revenues, and until 2010, the founders feared that investors would suddenly pull out of the company and would force its closure.

Major franchise acquisitions (2010–2016)
Having established themselves as working with comedy franchises, Telltale chose to work with dramatic franchises as well as comedy series. In June 2010, Telltale announced that they had secured licenses with NBC Universal to develop two episodic series based on Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. Notably, Telltale's Jurassic Park: The Game was the first game to break away from the standard adventure game format, including elements like quick time events and time-limited choices which would become a core gameplay element in their future adventure games. Telltale obtained the license from NBC Universal to develop episodic series around the Law & Order franchise in April 2011.

By 2010, Telltale had proven itself successful, with yearly revenues of $10 million, 90% greater than the previous year. Part of this was attributed to Back to the Future: The Game, which Steve Allison, the senior vice-president (VP) of marketing, called in 2011 their "most successful franchise to date". Allison stated that for most of their games, they only need to sell 100,000 copies to break even, but many of their recent releases have seen twice that number or more. The studio expanded from 90 to 140 employees. They had obtained a license in 2011 to develop a King's Quest adventure game based on the original Sierra games, but Activision took back the rights in 2013, which were subsequently used by The Odd Gentlemen to create their 2015 episodic King's Quest game.

Telltale's breakthrough success came with the licenses of the comic book series The Walking Dead and Fables in association with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2011. Allison anticipated that The Walking Dead series could be a $20 to $30 million franchise. Their The Walking Dead video game presented an alteration of Telltale's approach, as rather than a traditional adventure game where players would need to solve puzzles, The Walking Dead was more focused on providing a cinematic experience but presenting choices to the player, either through dialog trees or through quick time events, that would create "determinants" that would feed into latter parts of the episode and into future episodes; one example would be deciding which of one of two characters to save from a zombie attack at the spur of the moment. While these decisions do not have a direct impact on the game's overall narrative and structure, it provides a more personalized story around what decisions the player had made. This format proved highly successful: the game sold one million copies in 20 days, exceeded 8.5 million episode purchases by 2013, and an estimated $40 million in revenue. The success led to two additional 5-episode seasons, a 3-episode mini-season and a final 4-episode season. The Walking Dead is considered to have revitalized the waning adventure game genre due to this more emotionally driven focus. Since The Walking Dead, nearly all of Telltale's games have used a similar approach of being built around the impacts of the player's choices as determinants in later episodes and seasons.

Telltale has had several other licensing details from popular works, including Tales from the Borderlands based on the Borderlands series by Gearbox Software, and Game of Thrones, based on the HBO television show adaption, Minecraft: Story Mode based on the Mojang game, Minecraft, Batman: The Telltale Series from DC Comics, and Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series from Marvel Comics. On retrospective after the studio's closure, former employees of Telltale believed that the studio's expansion into all these additional licensed properties were trying to replicate the success of The Walking Dead, moving the company from a risk-taker to seeking risk aversion strategies. This was also propagated by the weight of the licensed properties: they had taken more conservative approaches to deliver a game that mirrored The Walking Dead, a well-known product, rather than take risks and potentially lose the license.

Telltale relocated to a larger space and expanded from 125 to 160 in mid-2013. Around 2015, the company had grown to 200 to 250 employees. The company continued to grow, at its peak having about 400 employees in mid-2017. In the midst of this growth, in 2014–2015, the management of Telltale recognized the need to restructure to handle more projects and more staff. This led to original chief executive officer (CEO) Dan Connors resigning and being replaced by co-founder Kevin Bruner, who was also the firm's president. Connors noted that with the studio's continued growth, it had begun experiencing growth-specific challenges. Connors stated that Bruner's ascension to CEO would best enable Telltale Games to act on future expansion opportunities. Connors remained on the board of directors, and also served as a creative consultant. Internally, there were concerns about this transition and Brunner's influence on it; an anonymous quality control (QC) employee writing in Gamasutra after the firm's closure called this transition "the beginning of the end" for Telltale.

With Bruner's placement as CEO in January 2015, Telltale said it was developing a game based on its own intellectual property as a result of this leadership change.

In February 2015, Lionsgate announced an investment within Telltale Games to produce a number of "Super Shows", a hybrid interactive work combining television and video game elements, which would be distributed through non-traditional channels such as through streaming services. The first Super Show planned was an original intellectual property (IP) developed by Telltale that would be able to take advantage of this format. Telltale also announced that Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and Unity Technologies CEO John Riccitiello joined Telltale's board of directors. Alongside this, Lionsgate had invested  into Telltale. The "Super Show" concept never got out of pre-production, due to issues that arose with the studio in 2016 and 2017, according to Variety.

Restructuring (2017–2018)

By 2016, Bruner said that the Telltale studio had established an environment to be able to work on four major titles simultaneously with room for various side projects. However, this approach to development had created a perpetual state of "crunch time" within Telltale, according to several current and former staff speaking to USgamer, The Verge, and Variety in 2017. This limited the amount of time that the creators and developers could spend on content in order to maintain a consistent flow of episodes to consumers but impacted the quality of games. There was a perpetual drive to release new episodes on a regular basis, whether they were good or not, so that the company had a continued source of income. This particularly affected the Telltale Tool, the game engine used since the company's inception, which caused numerous bugs in released episodes that Telltale became infamously noted for. The anonymous QC tester stated that their department was nearly always under crunch time, working from 48 to 60 hours a week on testing at least two game series across multiple platforms simultaneously, and were understaffed, leading to some of the quality control issues as well. During this time, the eighth generation of video game consoles emerged, and while the Telltale Tool was ported to these platforms, it showed its age in graphics quality, which also diminished Telltale's products. There was also a new trend of major AAA titles focusing more on emotional story-telling, such as God of War, which Telltale would not easily be able to compete with.

The company was also hobbled by working with established IP, and inconsistencies in the reviewing process with management that led to last-minute reworking of some episodes. The Verge also found some of the employees they spoke to had stated that top-level executives, including Bruner, had become fixated on the format that The Walking Dead presented, making decisions that prevented developers from looking at alternative formats or variations from this formula, stifling creativity and leading to several staff departures prior to the 2017 layoffs. According to narrative designer Emily Grace Buck, management would frequently demand rewrites of materials, with most games having between 60 and 90 percent of the content reworked after executive review. Bruner and management created a "culture of fear" of demotion or firing among developers. Some of these rewrites had come days prior to an episode's submission date for certification, creating hasty rewrites that filtered through the entire production process. This rush created some of the apparent "bugs" in the Telltale Tool which Buck stated were more often a result of the inability to smooth out hastily-reworked animations as well as perpetuating the crunch time culture within the company. Other cases of narrative rewrites were a result of different expectations by some of the executive management. Buck stated that they had originally been driven by management to make Minecraft: Story Mode as a more mature game, but eventually reworked this to a family-friendly title, while for their Guardians of the Galaxy game, the storywriters had written a story they felt more true to the humor and wit of the source material, but were told by management to make a darker story. Further, anonymous sources from Telltale stated that very few of the games were profitable, with only The Walking Dead: The First Season, Minecraft: Story Mode, and revenues from publishing 7 Days to Die turning a profit. Batman: The Telltale Series, released in 2016 was said to be one of the worst commercial failures for the company.

On March 15, 2017, Bruner announced he had stepped down as CEO of Telltale, though Variety reported that he had been voted out of this position by the Board of directors. Bruner turned the day-to-day operations to Connors, while still remaining on the Board of Directors. Bruner said "The time has come to pass the reins to someone that can better drive Telltale to the next level and realize all the potential that is here." Pete Hawley, the former VP for Games at Zynga, was announced as the new CEO, with Connors remaining on its Board and acting in an advisory role. Rather than other corporate "fixers" who take control of a company for a temporary period to help it regain its financial footing, Hawley had committed to staying with Telltale after helping the company to get past these problems.

In November 2017, a restructuring of the company cut about 90 positions, about a quarter of their staff, which was not expected to affect the release of any existing projects. Hawley said that the restructuring was for "reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team". While Telltale had not stated which positions were let go in the restructuring, sources speaking to USgamer stated that most were part of the management structure that led to these problems; coupled with Hawley's appointment as CEO, this was expected to be a turning point to help revitalize Telltale.

In June 2018, Bruner filed a lawsuit against Telltale in relation to his departure, citing financial damages as he had been seemingly removed from the Board of Directors, and thus could not gain information related to Telltale's financial status in anticipation of selling off a portion of his shares in the company. Telltale stated the claims were "meritless". In its response to Bruner's lawsuit, Telltale stated that the company "is now working to turn around the decline that it experienced under [Bruner]'s stewardship". Kent Mudle, the creative director for The Walking Dead: The Final Season, stated that the new management had shown a great deal of effort to turn the studio around from the previous uses, with the executives staying more hands-off and reducing the amount of micromanagement of the creative teams.

In June 2018, Telltale announced a partnership with Netflix for the streaming service to provide its games to subscribers, with the first planned game being Minecraft: Story Mode. Alongside this, Telltale announced that they were working on a yet-untitled game based on Netflix's original property, Stranger Things. According to Variety, there had been suggestions of teaming with Netflix for collaboration shortly after Stranger Things first aired in mid-2016, but Telltale's management at the time, including Bruner, rejected the idea. The Netflix partnership solidified after Hawley took over as CEO. The Stranger Things game would have been used to bridge the show's story between its second and third season. In addition to this game, Telltale had started working with Night School Studio in 2017 for them to make a first-person, narrative driven game that would have led into Telltale's game. However, Night School reported difficulty in cooperating with Telltale over 2018 and were also surprised by the studio's sudden closure.

Majority studio closure and aftermath (2018)
On September 21, 2018, CEO Pete Hawley announced that Telltale was undergoing a "majority studio closure", with around 90% of its present workforce (225 to 250 employees) let go that day. A core team of about 25 employees remained to "fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners", which includes completing the Minecraft: Story Mode interactive media project for Netflix. According to Dan Connors, the studio had been ready to close another round of financing when their last major investor pulled out. The company executives had to make the decision to end all production as soon as possible without this investment. While Connors did not specify which investor pulled out, Variety suggested that this may have been Lionsgate, which had contacted Telltale's board the previous week about its intent to pull out of funding Telltale in order to return to its core film business. Variety also reported that AMC Networks, which owns the rights to The Walking Dead television series, and Smilegate, a Korean mobile games publisher, were looking to invest in Telltale, but both pulled out the day before Telltale's closure announcement. Dan Murray, president of Skybound Interactive which was working with Telltale for The Walking Dead games, said "We knew some of the challenges Telltale was facing, but when the news hits so suddenly everyone was taken off guard", while anonymous Telltale employees stated to The Verge that they had known the company was in financial trouble in the months leading up to the closure and was further hurt by leaks of news related to the Netflix deal, which management wanted to use as a lure for speculative investors.

In a press release, Hawley stated:

Those who were let go reported they were given no warning, had to leave the office building within 30 minutes of the company's decision, received no severance, and only had a limited amount of time on their health care benefits. Melissa Hutchison, the voice actor for Clementine in The Walking Dead games, said that the news came in the middle of a recording session which they had to immediately end. On September 24, the former staff were allowed to return to the office within a three-hour timeframe to gather any belongings they did not manage to collect in the 30 minutes following the majority closure decision. The suddenness of the closure, along with the lack of post-layoff support for the employees, led to renewed discussions about the need for video game developers to unionize, with the Game Workers Unite grassroots movement calling the treatment of the Telltale employees "exploitative". On September 24, 2018, a class-action lawsuit was filed by former Telltale employee Vernie Roberts, representing about a total of 275 Telltale employees, alleging that Telltale violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act) and the more stringent requirements set by California of requiring at least 60 days notification before issuing mass layoffs.

Telltale did not officially comment on the status of its in-progress games, including The Wolf Among Us: Season Two, Game of Thrones: Season Two, and the untitled Stranger Things project, but laid-off employees alleged that teams working on these games had all been let go. On September 24, Netflix announced that it is "in the process of evaluating other options for bringing the Stranger Things universe to life in an interactive medium." It also confirmed that it plans to go ahead with releasing Minecraft: Story Mode as planned. The first three episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode were subsequently released on Netflix on November 27, and the remaining two were released that December.

Telltale released the second of four planned episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season as scheduled on September 25, 2018, and stated that it had been contacted by "multiple potential partners" to help bring the last two episodes of the series to completion in some manner. While some fans of the series were happy about the news, others, including Cory Barlog, suggested that Telltale should prioritize finding ways to pay the let-go developers over finishing the game. Two anonymous sources speaking to Ethan Gach of Kotaku clarified that Telltale was trying to convince potential development partners to hire the staff Telltale had laid off, so that the staff could remotely finish the two remaining episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season. During the 2018 New York Comic Con, Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead comic, stated that his production company Skybound Entertainment had completed negotiations with Telltale to finish the last two episodes of The Final Season through their Skybound Games division and with the original development team from Telltale.

On October 4, 2018, narrative designer Rachel Noel stated that her team within the skeleton crew was also laid off, and that there were "not many" people left at the company. Telltale saw assignment proceedings begin on October 11, 2018, working through Sherwood Partners to liquidate all remaining assets; the company remains in assignment as of April 2019. Various digital storefronts started removing Telltale products from their marketplaces by that November. For some of these removed games, after rights were returned, the original company was able to rerelease the titles through a new publisher; for example, Skybound republished all four seasons of The Walking Dead as one collection, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series, in September 2019, while Gearbox Software rereleased Tales from the Borderlands in February 2021.

Relaunch under LCG Entertainment (2018–present)

Following negotiations with Sherwood Partners starting in February 2019, LCG Entertainment acquired several key Telltale assets and on August 28, 2019, announced that it was re-launching the company by assuming "Telltale Games" as its trade name, operating out of Malibu, California, with a satellite studio in Corte Madera, California. Under the leadership of founders Jamie Ottilie (chief executive officer) and Brian Waddle (chief revenue officer), the new Telltale is set to re-release the old Telltale's back-catalog, as well as work on new games based on Telltale-affiliated properties.  While licenses for games and planned games like The Walking Dead and Stranger Things have since reverted to their original owners, the new Telltale retains licenses for The Wolf Among Us and Batman, as well as the intellectual property for Puzzle Agent. The new Telltale was expected to start small for the first six months to regain distribution channels, and the company has offered former staff of the old Telltale freelance roles within the company with the potential for full-time positions at a later point in time. Partners in the new Telltale include publisher Athlon Games, which will handle distribution, and financial contributors Chris Kingsley, Lyle Hall and Tobias Sjögren. None of the newly involved parties had previously worked with the old Telltale. The first game under this new company was a re-release of Batman: The Telltale Series, adding in a new noir-style shader among other fixes, which was released in December 2019. The company also announced The Wolf Among Us 2 at The Game Awards 2019. The sequel is being made in partnership with Adhoc Studios, a company composed of former Telltale employees who worked on the first game.

Former employees of the original Telltale were skeptical of LCG's approach to the relaunch of Telltale, considering that offering only freelance work while in San Francisco, which has one of the highest costs-of-living in the country, is risky. Others have urged LCG to pay off its existing Telltale debt to its former employees, while others have called for a boycott of any game from the new Telltale. As of 2022, roughly 50 percent of the company's staff is made up of former Telltale employees.

Development model
Telltale Games released video games in episodic installments. It is seen by production studios and other content producers to take a more realistic approach to movie tie-in games rather than the difficult "see the movie, play the game" model, and also collaborates with studios and screenwriters to create a strong experience that pays homage to the original film or franchise. In a September 2017 interview, Job Stauffer called Telltale's role as "an interactive TV network and a studio", able to produce content across a wide range of genres on a regular basis. He considered their studio something between a video game developer and a cable or streaming network with production capabilities like HBO or Netflix.

In general, Telltale offered its games as a one-time "season pass" purchase for the game's season when the first episode of the season was released, with the user then entitled to all planned episodes for that season. For digital purchases, this entitlement was handled through the digital storefront. In retail, Telltale published complete seasons after the season's digital release was over, but also adopted a model where they could publish, at the same time as the digital release, a retail disc that contains the first episode. The disc included a "season pass" entitlement to the remaining episodes to be digitally downloaded, tied to the disc itself rather than the user. This allowed for trading or resale of the retail product that can be played by others, which according to Stauffer, makes for a "nice in-between" market model that satisfies players, retailers, and themselves. For some of their games, Telltale developed additional downloadable content, such as 400 Days for The Walking Dead, or three additional episodes for Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1, which must be purchased separately from the season pass.

With Batman: The Telltale Series and most of their subsequently released episodic adventure games, Telltale added a "Crowd Play" feature that can be used by those that stream their playthroughs on services like Twitch. Through Crowd Play, viewers can vote for an option for the streamer to select.

While mainly a developer, Telltale also verified its self-publishing ethos; the only classic developer-publisher relationship was with Ubisoft for the CSI video game franchise. They have struck financial arrangements with GameTap for the first two seasons of the rebooted Sam & Max games, but their publishing arrangements have been chiefly made after the games were already completed and had already been sold via digital distribution.

Telltale aimed to also present itself on as many digital platforms and avenues as possible. To date, it has released games through GameTap; on Microsoft Windows and OS X, through Steam and similar services, plus its own online store, on Wii via WiiWare and disc, on Xbox 360, via Xbox Live Arcade and disc, on PlayStation 3 through PlayStation Network and disc, on iPhone and iPad through iTunes, on PlayStation Vita, and on Kindle Fire HDX. Though Telltale normally port their own games to other systems, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Ubisoft Sofia, and Bone: Out from Boneville was ported to Mac OS by Vanbrio. Telltale was one of the companies who Sony confirmed pledged PlayStation 4 third-party support at the PlayStation Meeting 2013. Telltale had also committed to developing and re-releasing seasons for the Nintendo Switch. Stauffer stated that there were no restrictions on what games they can bring to the Switch due to content, but they were focusing on their more recent, family-friendly games like Minecraft: Story Mode, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy only due to ease of porting these to the Switch, while older games like The Walking Dead required more effort to port.

Telltale Tool
The Telltale Tool is a proprietary game engine developed by Telltale. Telltale commenced development on the engine shortly after its founding, initially referring to the engine as the "Telltale Engine and Toolset". A casual poker game, Telltale Texas Hold'em, was created to test their engine and distribution model, and to ensure that all major bugs were ironed out before the release of their first adventure game, Bone: Out from Boneville.

The Telltale Tool has been used for every game developed by Telltale Games, and continued to receive improvements since the initial version, such as compatibility to new systems and better graphics capabilities. The only third-party game to use the Telltale Tool, Hector: Badge of Carnage, was developed by Straandlooper and also published by Telltale Games.

While the Telltale Tool has been updated over the years to support newer consoles and computers, it lacked features that made it more difficult to develop for as the company took on more projects, rushing the development schedules. Until 2016, Telltale Tool did not have a physics engine, meaning that if a scene required an object to fall, this had to be animated by hand, taking time from other more productive activities. This also prevented them from using elements like dynamic lighting, and required them to develop lighting models using 3D modeling tools like Maya, significantly extending time to develop art assets. The aged feature set of the Telltale Tool led to a perception that many of Telltale's games had an abnormally high rate of bugs and other technical flaws, pervasive enough to pose a significant risk of impeding players' ability to progress through a given game. A 2015 article by Kotaku noted that "their games, wonderful in many ways as they may be, have been accompanied by an undercurrent of fan anger" over widespread bugs and glitches. The article concluded that Telltale's support forums "paint a portrait of a publisher that is constantly releasing buggy and even outright broken games", seemingly lacking the resources to fix or even monitor most of them.

Telltale moved to an improved version of their engine around early 2016, partially implemented first in The Walking Dead: Michonne and completed for the release of Batman: The Telltale Series. The updated Telltale Tool provided direct support for DirectX 11 features, including physics-based models, texture mapping and blending, and dynamic lighting and shadows. The changes also helped automate and integrate a game's development across all departments within Telltale, and specifically helped to reduce memory use in some scenes, which had been identified as causing bugs in some consoles' versions.

In mid-June 2018, Variety reported that Telltale was moving away from the Telltale Tool and instead toward the established Unity game engine. The Stranger Things game was expected to be the first to use the Unity-based engine.

Telltale Publishing
Telltale helped other developers to publish their games. Under the moniker Telltale Publishing, Telltale entered into a publishing deal with Jackbox Games to bring the console versions of The Jackbox Party Pack to retail markets, and with The Fun Pimps to publish 7 Days to Die for consoles; according to Variety, this publishing deal was as financially successful for Telltale as the first The Walking Dead season. On August 18, 2016, Telltale published Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n by Night School Studio. During the company's restructuring in 2017, the publishing branch of Telltale had been put on hiatus but was expected to be reused once the company regained its financial stability.

Games

Legacy
The release of the first season of The Walking Dead in 2012 is considered to have created a resurgence in the adventure game genre, which had been languishing since about 2000. Dontnod Entertainment found the episodic approach to storytelling to be an ideal way to present Life Is Strange, and it has allowed them to release supplementary stories within the series in smaller pieces. Telltale's approach to branching stories has often been criticized, with choices ultimately having little effect on a game's overall narration, often being summarized as "choices don't matter"; players may make choices to save a character from death early in a game, but only to have that character die later for the game to have a cohesive plot and making the player's effort to save the character meaningless, for example.

Former employees of Telltale Games have gone on to adapt the narrative aspects of these games into their own products. Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, co-writers of the first season of The Walking Dead, decided to leave to pursue independent game development, founding Campo Santo in 2013 and releasing Firewatch, a critically-praised narrative-driven exploration game. Adam Hines, a writer for Telltale, co-founded Night School Studio in 2014, subsequently releasing Oxenfree which heavily used a "walk and talk" mechanic as part of its gameplay. Four former employees who had left before the studio's closure—Michael Choung (who had briefly spent time at Night School Studio), Dennis Lenart, Nick Herman, and Pierre Shorette—formed AdHoc Studio with the intent to develop live-action interactive video games, following in Telltale's footsteps. AdHoc has since become involved with the new Telltale Games by LCG to help with the narrative and cinematic elements of The Wolf Among Us 2. Telltale co-founder Dan Connors created a new studio in 2019, Skunkape Games, made up of himself and former Telltale employees Jake Rodkin, Randy Tudor, and Jonathan Sgro. The studio is working on remastering Telltale's Sam & Max games with assistance from other members of the original development team, beginning with the remaster of Sam & Max Save the World in December 2020. In 2021, Telltale co-founder Kevin Bruner created a new studio Dramatic Labs with more than twenty former Telltale employees, including former lead writer and creative director Andrew Grant, former lead writer Dan Martin, former creative director Kent Mudle, and former executive producer and creative director Brett Tosti. Dramatic Lab's first game, Star Trek: Resurgence, was released in May 2023.

References

External links

2004 establishments in California
2018 disestablishments in California
Companies based in San Rafael, California
Companies that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2018
Companies that have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy
Privately held companies based in California
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area

Video game companies based in California
Video game companies established in 2004
Video game companies disestablished in 2018
Defunct video game companies of the United States
Video game development companies
Video game publishers
Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Spike Video Game Award winners

Telltale Games


Fruid is a small reservoir in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, UK, near Menzion. It is formed by damming the Fruid Water, and supplements the contents of Talla Reservoir, forming part of the water supply for Edinburgh.

The construction of the reservoir flooded the valley, inundating several farmhouses including Hawkshaw. Playwright Peter Moffat had ancestors that previously lived in the area now covered by water and cites the location as inspiration for The Village.

See also
Baddinsgill Reservoir
Megget Reservoir
Talla Reservoir
West Water Reservoir
List of reservoirs and dams in the United Kingdom

References

Reservoirs in the Scottish Borders

Fruid Reservoir


Water content means the amount of water present in a porous substance, such as soil. This term is used in hydrogeology, soil science and soil mechanics. In saturated groundwater aquifers, all available spaces are filled with water. Above a capillary fringe, pore spaces have air in them too.

Gaps between soil particles are called pore spaces or voids. These voids contain various amounts of either water or air. Soil moisture content can be expressed in different basis:
Gravimetric: the mass of water/mass of solid material
Volumetric: the volume of soil/total porosity

The amount of void space within a soil depends on the distribution of particle sizes, and is quantified by soil porosity.

Soil moisture is the water stored in soil from after rain or melted snow soak into the ground.  This water can be used by plants in a process called evapotranspiration or it can continue to move deeper into the ground to become part of the groundwater in a process called groundwater recharge.

Related pages
 Humidity

Content
Soil

Water content


Lock Lane ARLFC are an amateur Rugby league Club in Castleford, West Yorkshire. Their home ground is the Hicksons Arena, part of the Lock Lane Sports Centre. The first team currently play in the National Conference Division One and the Academy team in the Yorkshire Men's League.

History
The club were formed in 1938 as an intermediate U-21 side, but were temporarily disbanded for the duration of the Second World War. They were reformed in 1947 and in 1958 reached the proper rounds of the Challenge Cup for the first time. For a time during the 1960s, and 1970s, the club had no permanent home ground, having lost the use of their Sandy Desert ground. They moved to their current ground in 1995.

The club have played at the professional stage of the Challenge cup on 21 occasions. These include First Round Proper of the Challenge Cup on four occasions (1958, 1960, 1970 and 1974). In 1970, the club almost caused an upset in the Challenge Cup against Huddersfield at Fartown ground in a narrow 15–10 defeat. Following the restructuring of the Challenge Cup in the 1993–94 season, they have qualified for the third round of the Challenge Cup on eight successive occasions between 1995 and 2002, a record for an amateur club. They also reached the third round in 2004, 2005, 2007 (when they lost to the town's professional team, Castleford Tigers 88–10 after leading in the early stages 4–0) 2011, 2016 and 2019.
In 2016, they lost in the 5th Round at  Halifax after beating professional outfit Oxford Rugby League 37–18 in the 3rd round and local NCL side Featherstone Lions 30–16 in the 4th round.

Cup success was achieved when the club won the Yorkshire County Cup, a competition for amateur clubs only, 3 times in the 1950s as well as 1971–72 and the BARLA Yorkshire County Cup in 1981–82, 2017–18 and 2018–19. The club have also reached the National Cup Final in 1981 and 1983, losing to Beecroft & Wightman (11–2) and Leigh Miners Welfare (12–8) respectively.

Club sides
The club run an open age First team and an Academy team alongside youth sides at  U17 and U18 as well as twelve Junior sides from U7 to U16.

Honours
 BARLA Yorkshire Cup
 Winners (3): 1982–83, 2017–18, 2018–19

Notable players
Players who have represented the club include:

 Stuart Arundel (also played for Leeds, Halifax & Featherstone Rovers)
 Grant Anderson (also played for Castleford Tigers)
 Joe Anderson (also played for Castleford, Leeds & Featherstone Rovers)
 Paul Anderson (also played for St Helens & Bradford Bulls & Great Britain) Won every medal rugby super League can offer
 Mark Aston (also played for Sheffield Eagles & Featherstone Rovers)
 Chris Bibb (also played for Featherstone Rovers & Great Britain)
 Ryan Boyle (also played for Castleford Tigers, Salford City Reds & Ireland)
 Paul Broadbent (also played for Sheffield Eagles, Halifax & Great Britain)
 Harry Burton (also played for Wakefield Trinity)
 Ben Crooks (also played for Hull)
 John Davies (also played for Castleford Tigers,  Dewsbury Rams & Featherstone Rovers)
 Greg Eden (also played for Castleford Tigers, Huddersfield Giants & Hull Kingston Rovers)
 Gareth Ellis (also played for Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, Leeds Rhinos, Wests Tigers (Australia) & Great Britain)
 Harry Poole (rugby league) (also played for Hull Kingston Rovers, Hunslet & Great Britain)
 Michael Gibbins (also played for Dewsbury Rams & Batley Bulldogs)
 John Sheridan (also played for Castleford)
 Daniel Smith (also played for Castleford, Leeds Rhinos, Wakefield Trinity, Featherstone Rovers & Huddersfield Giants)
 Tommy Trayler (also played for Sheffield Eagles)
 Liam Watts (also played for Castleford Tigers, Hull Kingston Rovers & Hull)
 Joe Westerman (also played for Castleford Tigers & Hull)
 Steve Barnes (Castleford Colts, Doncaster R.L.F.C)
 Ben Johnston (Castleford Tigers and Halifax Blue Sox)

References

External links
Official website
Lock Lane on the NCL website

1938 establishments in England
BARLA teams
Rugby league teams in West Yorkshire
Rugby clubs established in 1938
Rugby league teams in England
Sport in Castleford

Castleford Lock Lane


Alfred Eaton Ives (December 12, 1809 – August 2, 1892) was an American minister and politician.

Ives, second son of Enoch and Sarah (Gorham) Ives, of New Haven, Connecticut, was born there on December 12, 1809.  He enrolled at Yale College in the class of 1837.  At the close of the Sophomore year he left his class and began the study of theology in the Yale Divinity School, where he remained for three years. In 1847 he was given an honorary degree by the College, and his name was enrolled with his class.  On September 25, 1838, he was ordained as pastor of the Congregational Church in Colebrook, Conn., where he remained until May 2, 1848. On September 5, 1849, he was installed over the Congregational Church in Deerfield, Mass., and there continued until April 11, 1855, when he went to Castine, Maine, where he was installed pastor of the Congregational Church on June 20.  He was dismissed from this pastorate of twenty-three years on June 18, 1878, but retained his residence among an attached people.  In 1879 and 1883-84 he was a member of the Maine House of Representatives.  He died in Castine, from an attack of influenza, on August 2, 1892, in his 83rd year.

He married, on November 6, 1838, Harriet P., daughter of Richard Stone, of New Haven, who died on January 26, 1889.  Their children were three daughters, who died in early childhood, and two sons who survived him, both graduates of Amherst College, the younger being also a graduate of the Yale Divinity School.

External links
 Victory turned into mourning. A discourse, on occasion of the death of Abraham Lincoln

1809 births
1892 deaths
Politicians from New Haven, Connecticut
Yale Divinity School alumni
American Congregationalist ministers
Republican Party members of the Maine House of Representatives
19th-century American politicians
People from Colebrook, Connecticut
People from Castine, Maine
Religious leaders from New Haven, Connecticut
Yale College alumni
19th-century American clergy

Alfred Eaton Ives


Theodor von Sickel (18 December 1826 – 21 April 1908) was a German-Austrian historian born in Aken, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia. He specialized in early European medieval history, and is considered to be the founder of modern diplomatics (critical document research).

In 1850 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Halle, then furthered his studies at the École Nationale des Chartes in Paris. In 1857 he was appointed professor at the University of Vienna, and from 1869 to 1891, he was director of the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research), specializing in ancillary branches of historical study, that included paleography, chronology and diplomatics.

From 1875 he was a member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, of which, he subsequently became head of its diplomata section. In this capacity, he performed meticulous and expert edition of medieval documents, including over 1300 royal documents of the 10th century (Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae).

In 1881 he established the Österreichisches Historisches Institut (Austrian Historical Institute) in Rome, serving as its director until 1901. From 1897 to 1908, he was president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

Selected works
 Beiträge zur Diplomatik (8 volumes, 1861–1882).
 Acta regum et imperatorum Karolinorum digesta et ennarata. Volume 1: Urkundenlehre (1867), Volume 2: Urkundenregesten.
 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae 1 (Conradi I., Heinrici I. et Ottonis I. Diplomata), Hannover 1879-1884 – Conrad I, Henry I, Otto I.
 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae 2,1 (Ottonis II. Diplomata), Hannover 1888 – Otto II.
 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae 2,2 (Ottonis III. Diplomata), Hannover 1893 – Otto III.
 Kaiserurkunden in Abbildungen, 11 parts 1890/91 (with Heinrich von Sybel, 1817-1895)
 Römische Berichte (5 volumes, 1895–1901).

References
 Sickel, Friedrich Adolf Theodor Ritter von  In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, , S. 309–311.
 BLKÖ:Sickel, Theodor in Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich.

1826 births
1908 deaths
People from Aken (Elbe)
People from the Province of Saxony
19th-century Austrian historians
Austrian archivists
Academic staff of the University of Vienna
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
École Nationale des Chartes alumni

Theodor von Sickel


Paul Jata (born September 4, 1949) is a former Major League Baseball utility player who played 32 games with the 1972 Detroit Tigers.

A native of Astoria, Queens, Jata is of Polish heritage. He began playing baseball as a left-handed batter.  His older brothers persuaded him to become a right-handed batter, and he was a .400 hitter at William Cullen Bryant  High School in Astoria, New York. In 1967, Jata was drafted by the Tigers in the 5th round of the 1967 amateur draft. He signed with the Tigers for $10,000.

Jata married Mary Olson of Rockwood, Michigan on June 12, 1971. After the wedding, Jata had a 14-game hitting streak for the Toledo Mud Hens. He had a .367 batting average in the 23 games following the ceremony. The Sporting News published a three-column feature story on Jata's post-wedding hitting streak titled "Wedded Bliss Helps Hens' Jata to Big Rookie Season".

Jata spent several years in the Tigers' minor league system with the Lakeland Tigers (1967–1968), Rocky Mount Leafs (1969), Montgomery Rebels (1970), and Toledo Mud Hens (1971).

After an impressive showing in the Tigers' 1972 spring camp, Jata made the big league roster.  In April 1972, Detroit manager Billy Martin said he preferred to use Jata as the No. 3 catcher and at first base.  The Sporting News reported that "his big asset is a level swing as a right-handed pinch-hitter."  He played 32 games with the 1972 Tigers (12 games at first base, five in left field, five in right field, and one at catcher) and hit .230 with 17 hits, 8 runs, 3 RBIs and no home runs. Jata played his final major league game on October 4, 1972, the last day of the 1972 regular season.  He continued to play in the Tigers' minor league organization in 1973 for the Montgomery Rebels and Toledo Mud Hens. He was traded to the Minnesota Twins for Jim Nettles after the 1973 season.. He played for the Orlando Twins in 1976.

References

External links

1949 births
Living people
Detroit Tigers players
Toledo Mud Hens players
Orlando Twins players
Lakeland Tigers players
Montgomery Rebels players
Rocky Mount Leafs players
Baseball players from Queens, New York

Paul Jata


Waite Park is a neighborhood in the Northeast community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its boundaries are 37th Avenue NE to the north, NE Stinson Boulevard to the East, Saint Anthony Parkway to the south, and NE Central Avenue to the west. It is the furthest northeast neighborhood within Minneapolis. The neighborhood is within Minneapolis's first ward and falls under the jurisdiction of the second precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department.

History
Waite Park was among the last areas of northeast Minneapolis to be developed into urban neighborhoods in the last part of the nineteenth century. The area was mostly farmland until the 1880s and 1890s. The completion of Saint Anthony Parkway through the neighborhood in 1924 increased the pace of development. Although many of the homes in the neighborhood were built in the decades between the completion of the parkway and World War II, the neighborhood was not fully developed until the postwar housing boom.

The neighborhood is named after Edward Foote Waite, a former judge in Hennepin County.

Waite Park Neighborhood and Columbia Park Neighborhood were the last areas of East Minneapolis to be developed. The land between 27th Avenue and 37th Avenue was incorporated into the city by 1887. Most farmers in the area sold their land to developers soon afterwards. Their former fields were platted into house lots and streets. By 1892 one-third of the land in Waite Park had been platted. Some farmers continued to hold against the advancing city, the last being the Ritchels who remained until the 1940s.

The Minneapolis St Paul and Sault Ste Marie Railway, which still runs through the neighborhood, was also completed in 1887. The railroad built a large repair facility on the shores of Lake Sandy. The lake disappeared in the early twentieth century, but the Shoreham Yards facility remains. New Boston, centered at Lowry and Central was a thriving commercial center at this time.

Despite railroad access and proximity to a commercial center, Waite Park grew slowly in these years. 30 years after incorporation, two-thirds of the land had been platted for houses, but only 160 built. Although the total population of Minneapolis 80 years ago was almost the same as it is today Waite Park had less than 7% of the 2400 homes in the neighborhood today. Central Avenue was the focus of the area; two-thirds of the houses in Waite Park in 1914 were within 3 blocks.

In May 1915, the St. Anthony Commercial Club proposed to build a parkway across Northeast Minneapolis. This would help to complete the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, a belt of parks and parkways encircling the city, first envisioned in the 1880s. They also hoped it would stimulate economic development in the area. This idea received a boost when the Armour company donated a mile-and-a-half-long strip of land in St. Anthony township, and offered to pay the costs of constructing a parkway along that route. Armour had purchased the land for a meatpacking plant, later they decided South Saint Paul would be a better location.

The original plan for extending the Grand Rounds was to extend Stinson Boulevard into what is now Columbia Heights, and follow the Reservoir Boulevard back to Columbia Park (which had been purchased in 1892). Now the plan was to build St. Anthony Boulevard along a meandering path across Northeast Minneapolis. The new parkway was named 'St. Anthony' because it ran through St. Anthony Township for much of its length. Land was also donated to extend the parkway to East Hennepin Avenue, along what is now Industrial Boulevard. In the 1930s this southern extension of the parkway would be swapped for Ridgeway Road to provide room for a gravel pit. The stretch between the end of Ridgeway Road and the Mississippi river trails that start at the University of Minnesota East Bank remain the only gap in the Grand Rounds.

To build St Anthony Parkway the city had to purchase the land between Stinson and Columbia Park, which was mostly empty lots. However, as the Secretary of the Park Board admitted at the time "No time has been set for beginning the actual work of constructing the boulevard nor is any money for the work now available." The outbreak of World War I further delayed construction, which isn't completed until 1924. The total cost of the boulevard was estimated at $910,000 in 1923. This money came from a variety of sources. Armour's donation of land and materials was valued at $160,000. $300,000 was raised in bonds, and $150,000 from general city funds. The remaining $300,000 was assessed against property in East Minneapolis, which worked out to about $15 per lot.

In November 1923 Armour offered to build a golf course on their land east of the parkway, and sell it to the city for $200,000. Greens fees would pay for the acquisition so it was a good deal for the city. In 1924 another $50,000 in bonds was issued to complete St. Anthony Boulevard and Grandview Park (renamed to Deming Heights Park in the 1930s). In September 1924 early settlers of the area celebrated the grand opening of the Boulevard with a parade, and speeches. Businesses in the area were closed for half a day so everyone could attend the festivities. Also in 1924 the Johnson Streetcar line was extended from 29th to 33rd, which improved access and spurred house construction in Waite Park. In October 1924 Alderman Gisele was quoted in the local paper, "The corner of 33rd and Ulysses is in a section which is coming to the front as a very desirable locality for modern homes. It is not very far from the beautiful new St. Anthony Boulevard."

By 1940 three-quarters of all houses in Waite Park were within three blocks of St. Anthony Boulevard. The number of houses had increased fourfold in 25 years, but there were still only a quarter of the present number of houses. It would take the post-WWII housing boom to completely fill out the neighborhood. Contrast this with the Audubon Park Neighborhood, just south of St. Anthony Boulevard, where three-quarters of existing houses were built before 1939.

Notable features
Saint Anthony Parkway runs along the southern border of the Waite Park neighborhood and is part of the Minneapolis Grand Rounds Scenic Byway. Parks in the neighborhood include Waite Park, Deming Heights Park, and Cavell Park.

References

External links
Minneapolis Neighborhood Profile - Waite Park
Waite Park Community Council
Waite Park Neighborhood Garden

Neighborhoods in Minneapolis

Waite Park, Minneapolis


The Chazy Reef Formation is a mid-Ordovician limestone deposit in northeastern North America.

It consists of some of the oldest reef systems built by a community of organisms rather than the deposit of a limited range of similar organisms, such as Stromatolite mounds deposited by ancient cyanobacteria. The reef structure was formed largely by cryptostome and trepostome bryozoa, some of the oldest known bryozoans, but corals made an early appearance, and stromatoporoids.

The formation is named for the small town of Chazy, New York, where the reef was noted by James Hall in Palaeontology of New York (vol. I, 1847) and the fossils first studied by the Canadian paleontologist Elkanah Billings (1858, 1859). The reef extends from Tennessee to Quebec and Newfoundland, but its most easily studied outcropping is at Goodsell Ridge, Isle La Motte, the northernmost island in Lake Champlain; there, gentle uplift has tilted the sediments: the bedding planes now dip slightly to the north, revealing sequences of horizons in exposed rock. The black limestone of Isle La Motte takes a polish, revealing the white "bird's-eye" markings of embedded fossil shells, notably the spirals formed by sliced gastropod shells. Rock of the Chazy Formation was quarried from the nineteenth century at the Fisk Quarry, Isle La Motte, the oldest quarry in Vermont. Portions of the exposed reef on several islands in Lake Champlain were dedicated as the Chazy Fossil Reef National Natural Landmark in 2009.

The system formed in warm tropical waters of the Iapetus Ocean, in low latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. The site was in shallow waters of a continental shelf: the continental craton of Laurentia lay to the west, beyond the lagoon system that formed behind the protective reef. The time was some 480-450 Ma (million years ago), at a period when global paleoclimate was so warm that the planet was all but ice-free. Atmospheric carbon dioxide was fourteen to sixteen times more plentiful than it is today.

The Chazy Reef Formation, which built up vertically from a muddy base catching fine dark silt as it grew, began as mounds deposited by bryozoans that stabilized a muddy bottom, then built up into the water column to such an extent that the connected mounds modified their surrounding environment (Mehrtens). As the reef aged, it began to offer an increasing variety of ecological niches, which fostered the first rich local biodiversity that has characterized all reef systems ever since. One dominant reef-building organism took the place of another, in a slowly evolving faunal succession.

The Chazy Reef Formation has given its name to the contemporaneous mid-Ordovician faunal stage, the Chazyan.

Notes

External links
(Lamotte Preservation Trust) The Chazy Reef on Isle La Motte
(Vermont Geological Survey)  Dr. Charlotte Mehrtens, "Chazy Reef at Isle LaMotte"
Chazy Reef Formation (pdf file)

Further reading
Raymond, P.E. 1924. "The oldest coral reef" Report of the Vermont State Geologist, no. 14, pp 72–77.

Ordovician System of North America
Middle Ordovician Series
Ordovician United States
Ordovician stratigraphic units of Canada
Stratigraphy of Quebec
Ordovician geology of New York (state)
Ordovician geology of Pennsylvania
Ordovician geology of Tennessee
Ordovician geology of Vermont
Geologic formations of Newfoundland and Labrador
Lake Champlain
Ordovician southern paleotemperate deposits
Shallow marine deposits
Reef deposits

Chazy Formation


Pawnbroking, lending money on portable security, began in ancient history. The practice was widespread in many parts of the world, from ancient Greece to medieval China and medieval Europe.

Mosaic law
Mosaic law precluded pawnbroking as it forbade the acceptance of interest from a poor borrower, and Jews were forbidden to lend money at interest to each other, although they could charge interest to non-Jews. Until the Reformation, Christians were also forbidden to lend to each other for interest.

China
The earliest Chinese pawnbrokers, in the 5th century, were established, owned, and operated by Buddhist monasteries; only later were they more widely seen. They were known by a number of names. Changshengku (长生库, long-life treasuries) originally referred to Buddhist monasteries in general. Other terms included jifupu (seen in Tang texts), didangku (Song period), and jiedianku (Yuan period). During the Southern Song dynasty, wealthy lay people sometimes formed partnerships with Buddhist monasteries and opened pawnshops (avoiding property taxes from which monasteries were exempt). A 1202 document records ten people forming a ju (局), which would support the establishment of a pawnshop in a monastery.
In the late Qing and Republican China era (1840-1949), Chinese pawnbrokers employed flexible strategies to extend their business to a wide range of social members. Various measures such as relationship building, strategic philanthropy, and social value advancement were adopted to improve pawnbroking industry's and pawnbrokers' social image.

Ancient Greece and Rome
Pawning was common in Ancient Greece and Rome; most contemporary law on the subject is derived from Roman sources. Many pawnbrokers were professional or semi-professional and operated from private shops. Under Roman law, certain items (such as wearing apparel, furniture, and instruments of tillage) could not be pledged. The emperor Augustus converted the proceeds from property confiscated from criminals into a fund from which the state lent money without interest to those who pledged valuables equal to double the amount borrowed.

Medieval Europe
Jewish and Christian pawnbrokers and money-lenders, the latter often referred to as Cahorsins and Lombards, were common in medieval Europe, where they were often tolerated by authorities, despite opposition from the Catholic Church.

Pawnbroking spread to England with the Norman conquest. Many pawnbrokers in England were Jewish, and despite services rendered (often to the Crown), they were often unpopular, prompting greater restrictions and eventually the Expulsion of Jews from England in 1290. The expulsion of Jewish pawnbrokers enabled Lombard merchants to settle in England. Edward III pawned his jewels to the Lombards to raise money for his war with France in 1338, and Henry V did the same in 1415.

In medieval Italy, the pledge system arose which became almost universal in Europe. The system was benevolent, with early "mounts of piety" established in the 15th century, lending money to the poor without interest if the money was covered by the value of the pledges.

Similar systems began at Freising in Bavaria in 1198 and at Salins in Franche-Comté in 1350 (which charged 7.5% interest) and in London in 1361, where Michael Northburgh, Bishop of London, bequeathed 1000 silver marks for the establishment of a free pawnshop.
These early efforts, like the later Italian ones, failed. The Vatican, therefore, allowed the Sacri monti di pietà to charge sufficient interest to cover their expenses. A controversy arose about the legality of charging interest, which was settled by Pope Leo X. At the tenth sitting of the First Council of the Lateran, Leo declared that the pawnshop was a lawful and valuable institution and threatened dissenters with excommunication. The Council of Trent confirmed his decision, and Charles Borromeo later suggested the establishment of state or municipal pawnshops.  These gradually replaced the private licensed pawnbrokers throughout much of Europe.

Long before this, however, monti di pietà commonly charged interest for loans in Italy. They were established by 1464, when the earliest recorded monti (at Orvieto) was confirmed by Pius II. Three years later, another was opened in Perugia by the Franciscans Barnabus Interamnensis and Fortunatus de Copolis. They amassed the necessary capital by preaching, and the Perugian pawnshop earned a substantial profit at the end of its first year. After Barnabus' death in 1474, they were supported by Bernandino di Feltre (another Franciscan). Monti di pietà were opened in Assisi, Mantua, Parma, Lucca, Piacenza, Padua, Vicenza, Pavia and a number of smaller towns.

The Dominicans unsuccessfully denounced pawnshops. Viterbo opened one in 1469, and Sixtus IV confirmed another in his native town in Savona a decade later.

In Florence, the municipality and the Jews opposed Bernandino. Savonarola, a Dominican, established the first Florentine pawnshop after local theologians declared that charging interest was not a sin. Despite papal acceptance, the first pawnshop in Rome was only opened (by a Franciscan) in 1539.

Early Present Period

Europe
From Italy, pawnshops gradually spread across Europe. Augsburg adopted the system in 1591, Nuremberg copied the Augsburg regulations in 1618, and by 1622 pawnshops were open in Amsterdam, Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent. Madrid followed suit in 1705, when a priest opened a charitable pawnshop with five pence from  his poor box.

The institution was very slow in obtaining a footing in France. It was adopted at Avignon in 1577, and at Arras in 1624. The doctors of the once powerful Sorbonne could not reconcile themselves to the lawfulness of interest, and when a pawnshop was opened in Paris in 1626, it had to be closed within a year. Then it was that Jean Boucher published his Défense des monts de piété in favor of pawnbroking. Marseilles obtained one in 1695, but it was not until 1777 that the first mont de pit was founded in Paris by royal patent. Statistics for the first few years of its existence show that in the twelve years between 1777 and the Revolution, the average value of the pledges was 42 francs 50 centimes, which is double the present average. The interest charged was 10% per annum, and large profits were made upon the 16 million livres that were lent every year.

Borrowing money, secured by deposited goods, was first regulated in the Low Countries in 1600. Albert VII and his wife Isabella, governors of the Spanish Netherlands under Philip III, lowered the interest rate from  to  percent. They introduced the monte de piedad in 1618, and in a dozen years the institution was established in nearly all large Belgian towns. Interest was fixed at 15 percent before it was reduced and restored to almost the original rate. Some towns also had charitable funds for interest-free loans. Shortly after the monte de piedad was introduced in the Spanish provinces, prince-bishop of Liège Ferdinand of Bavaria followed the archdukes' example. The original rate was 15 percent, when the Lombard money-lenders had been charging 43 percent. The prince-bishop's montes de piedad were so successful that their interest rate did not exceed five percent until 1788, when it was increased by one-half percent.

Britain and Ireland
The Lombards were unpopular, and Henry VII harassed them. An "Act against Brokers" was passed in 1603, and remained in force until 1872. It was aimed at counterfeit brokers, of whom there were many in London. This type of broker was considered a receiver of stolen goods; the act provided that no sale (or pawn) of stolen jewels, plate or other goods to a pawnbroker in

Under Charles I, another act asserted that a pawnbroker was not a respectable (or trustworthy) person; however, it was planned to set Charles up in the business. The Civil War was approaching; supplies were badly needed, and a Royalist proposed the establishment of a state pawnshop. According to the proposal, "The intolerable injuries done to the poore subjects by brokers and usurers that take 30, 40, 50, 60, and more in the hundredth, may be remedied and redressed, the poor thereby greatly relieved and eased, and His Majestie much benefited". The king would receive two-thirds of the profits, and the working capital (£100,000) would be provided by the city of London. Reform of what Shakespeare called "broking pawn" was in the air at the time, and in the early days of the Commonwealth of England a mont de pieté was proposed in Observations manifesting the Conveniency and Commodity of Mount Pieteyes, or Public Bancks for Relief of the Poor or Others in Distress, upon Pawns (a 1651 pamphlet). According to A Short History of the Bank of England, published in 1695, the directors of the early Bank of England intended to help the poor by establishing pawnshops at an interest rate of one penny per pound per month (five percent per year).

Suspicion of pawnbrokers continued during the 18th century, when an act of Parliament ended the custom of publicans lending money on pledges so their customers could drink. Their reputation was also harmed by the Charitable Corporation, which demonstrated that pawnbroking encouraged dishonesty by giving thieves an opportunity to sell stolen goods
and allowed a person planning bankruptcy to purchase goods on credit and dispose of them for cash (defrauding their creditors). The Pawnbroker's Licence Law of 1785 licensed pawnbrokers for £10 in London and £5 in the country; the interest rate was set at  percent per month, and the length of loans was confined to one year.

Late 19th century

Britain and Ireland

1800–1872
Modern pawnbroking legislation began with the Pawnbrokers Act of 1800. Lord Eldon, who admitted that he had used pawnshops in his youth, was influential in its passage. The pawnbrokers were grateful, and for many years after Lord Eldon's death they toasted him at their dinners. The act increased the interest rate to  percent per month (20 percent per year, unless unpaid interest increased the debt). Loans could be granted for a year, but pledges might be redeemed up to 15 months; the first week of the second month would not count for interest.

During its 72-year history, the act was amended three times:
 In 1815, licence fees were raised to £15 in London and £7 10s in the countryside.
 In 1840, an act of Parliament abolished rewards to informers for reporting illegal rates of interest.
 In 1860, pawnbrokers were allowed to charge a halfpenny for a pawn ticket when a loan was under five shillings.

The chief provisions of the act were unpopular, and the Pawnbrokers' National Association and the Pawnbrokers' Defence Association worked to obtain its liberalization. It was argued that the usury laws had been abolished for the entire community except for pawnbrokers who loaned less than £10, who were prevented from lending money on bulky articles requiring large storage space. In 1870 the House of Commons appointed a select committee on pawnbrokers, which heard testimony that during the previous year 207,780,000 pledges were lodged (30–40 million in London). The average value of pledges was about four shillings, and the number of articles pawned dishonestly was reportedly one in 14,000. Later, official statistics indicate that of forfeited pledges sold in London, less than 20 per million were claimed by the police.

Pawnbrokers Act of 1872
The result of the select committee's work was the Pawnbrokers Act of 1872, which repealed, altered and consolidated all previous legislation and continues to regulates the relationship between the public and pawnbrokers. Based on an Irish law passed by Parliament, it removed restrictions and reduced the licence fee in London from £15 to the £7 10s paid in the provinces. According to the act (which does not affect loans above £10),
 A pledge is redeemable within one year, with a seven-day grace period.
 Pledges pawned for 10s or less and not redeemed in time become the property of the pawnbroker.
 Pledges above 10s are redeemable until sale, which must be by public auction.
 In addition to one halfpenny for the pawn ticket (sometimes not charged for very small pawns), the pawnbroker is entitled to charge interest one halfpenny per month on every 2s (or part of 2s) lent if the loan is under £2 and on every 2s 6d if the loan is above £2.
 Special contracts may be made for loans over £2, at a rate of interest agreed on between lender and borrower.
 The following are summary offences:
 Unlawful pawning of goods not the property of the pawner.
 Taking an article from a person under age twelve or intoxicated.
 Taking linen, apparel or unfinished goods or materials.
 A new pawnbroker must produce a magistrate's certificate to be licensed.
 A licence cannot be refused if the applicant presents sufficient evidence of good character.
 The word "pawnbroker" must be inscribed in large letters over the shop door.

Provisions in the act safeguard the interests of borrowers whose unredeemed pledges are sold. Sales (by auction) take place only on the first Monday of January, April, July and October, and on the following days if needed.

Pawnbroking spread in popularity in Britain as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and the National Pawnbrokers Association was founded in 1892 to represent the industry. Annual interest on loans of 2s. had been increased by successive acts of Parliament from six percent in 1784 to 25 percent in 1800 and 27 percent in 1860. An English mont de piété was once proposed by the Salvation Army and in 1894 the London County Council considered a municipal effort, but neither came to fruition.

Scotland and Ireland

During the early 19th century, there was only one pawnbroker in Ireland; in 1833 there were 52, rising to 312 by 1865. Glasgow and Edinburgh probably contain nearly as many. In Ireland, the interest rates for loans are nearly identical to those charged in England, but a penny (instead of a halfpenny) is charged for the ticket. Articles pledged for less than IR£1 must be redeemed within six months, but nine months are allowed for amounts between 30s and £2. For sums over £2 the period is a year, as in England. In Ireland, a fraction of a month is calculated as a full month for interest; in England, fortnights are recognized after the first month. In 1838, there was an effort to establish monts de piété in Ireland; in 1841, the eight charitable pawnshops had a negative balance of £5,340. By 1847 only three were left, which also eventually collapsed.

United States
Pawnbrokers are strictly regulated. Each pawnbroker must have a criminal background check. Those pawning items must present a photo ID and are often asked for a thumbprint. Criminals know to avoid pawnshops since the items purchased or pawned are reported to the police each day. Many crimes are solved when pawnshop owners turn in a list of the items pawned or purchased when the match up with a stolen item on a police database.  Each state has its own regulations, with those of New York and Massachusetts fairly representative.

Pawnbrokers are usually licensed by the mayor or by the mayor and aldermen; in Boston, however, they are licensed by the police commissioner. In New York, permits are renewable annually and a pawnbroker must file a surety bond with the state. Business is conducted on much the same lines as in England. Loans are made for four months, with an additional 30-day grace period. Exceeding the interest rate is a misdemeanor. Unredeemed pledges may be sold at any time after the loan expires. New York has one pawnshop for every 12,000 residents. In Massachusetts, unredeemed pledges may be sold four months after the date of deposit. The licensing authority fixes the interest rate, which may vary for different amounts. In Boston, every pawnbroker must submit a daily list of pledges taken (including the time and amount lent) to the police. Pawnshop chains include Cash America International and First Cash Financial Services, both headquartered in Texas.

Europe
The fact that on the continent of Europe monts de piété are almost invariably either a state or a municipal monopoly necessarily places them upon an entirely different footing from the British and American pawnshop. Compared with the English system, the customary European system is elaborate and cumbersome; slow in its operation, and based upon the supposition that the borrower carries in his pockets papers testifying to his identity. On the other hand, European custom limits the interest on large loans, where in the English system the rate of interest on a "special contract" of £2 or more may be high, and often is. The pawning system of loans is, to be fair to both systems, always expensive, either in actual interest or in collateral disadvantages; this remains true whether the lender is a for-profit pawnbroker or a government mont de pit.

The Netherlands and Belgium
The montes de piedad were undermined by the French Revolution but were re-established under French dominion, and for many years the laws governing them were altered by the French, Dutch and Belgian governments. Pawnbroking is regulated by an 1848 law, supplemented by an 1891 constitution for the Mont-de-Piété of the city of Brussels dating from.

The working capital of these official pawnshops is furnished by charitable institutions or the municipalities, but the Brussels one possesses a certain capital of its own in addition. In het Nederlands, the rate of interest charged in various parts of the country varies from 4 to 16%. In Belgium the rate is around 6,5%. The management is very similar to that of the French Monts-de-Piété (crédit municipaux), but the arrangements are much more favorable to the borrower. The initial term of a loan contract is unually 6 or 12 months. In the Netherlands, private pawnbrokers flourish side by side with the municipal Banken van Leening, nor are there any limitations upon the interest that may be charged. The rules of the official institutions are very similar to those of the monts de pit in the Latin countries, and unredeemed pledges are sold publicly 15 months after being pawned. A large proportion of the advances are made upon gold and diamonds; workmen's tools are not taken in pledge, and the amount lent varies from 8d. upwards. On condition of finding such sum of money as may be required for working capital over and above loans from public institutions, and the caution money deposited by the city officials, the municipality receives the profits.

Germany
Pawnbroking in Germany is conducted at once by the state, by the municipalities, and by private enterprise; but of all these institutions the state loan office in Berlin is the most interesting. It dates from 1834, and the working capital was found, and still continues to be in part provided, by the Prussian State Bank. The profits are invested, and the interest devoted to charitable purposes. The maximum and minimum rates of interest are fixed, but the rate varies, and often stands at about 12%. Two-thirds of the estimated value is the usual extent of a loan; four-fifths is advanced on silver, and five-sixths on fine gold. State and municipal bonds may be pledged up to a maximum of L150, the advance being 80% of the value, and a fixed interest of 6% is charged upon these securities. The values are fixed by professional valuers, who are liable to make good any loss that may result from over-estimation. The bulk of the loans are under five, and the state office is used less by the poor than by the middle classes. Loans run for six months, but a further six months' grace is allowed for redemption before the article pledged can be sold by auction. The net annual profit usually amounts to little more than 1% upon the capital employed.

Austria-Hungary
Pawnbroking laws of Austria-Hungary were similar to those of England. Free trade exists, and the private trader, who does most of the business, must obtain a government concession and deposit caution-money from 80 to 800, according to the size of the town. He must, however, compete with the monts de pit or Versatzaemter, which are sometimes municipal and sometimes state institutions. The chief of these is the imperial pawn office of Vienna, which was founded with charitable objects by the emperor Joseph I in 1707, with half of the annual surplus paid to the Vienna poor fund. Here, as in Berlin, the profits are relatively small. Interest is charged at the uniform rate of 10%, which is calculated in two-week periods, however speedily redemption may follow upon pawning. For small loans varying from two to three kronen, 5% only is charged. The Hungarian state and municipal institutions appear, on the whole, to compete somewhat more successfully with the private firms than is the case in Vienna.

Italy
In Italy, the country of origin of the mont de piété, the institution still flourishes. It is, as a rule, managed by a committee or commission, and the regulations follow Italy fairly closely the lines of the one in Rome, which never lends less than fod. or more than 40. Four-fifths of the value is lent upon gold, silver and jewels, and two-thirds upon other articles. The interest, which is reckoned monthly, varies with the amount of the loan from 5 to 7%, but no interest is chargeable upon loans up to 5 lire. A loan runs for six months and may be renewed for similar periods up to a maximum of five years. If the renewal does not take place within two weeks of the expiration of the ticket, the pledge is sold, any surplus there may be being paid to the pawner. When more than 10 lire are lent there is a charge of 1% for the ticket. Agencies of the mont de pit are scattered about Rome, and carry on their business under the same rules as the central office, with the disadvantage to the borrower that he has to pay an agent's fee. The amount to be advanced by a municipal pawnshop is fixed by an official called the commissaire-priseur, who is compelled to load the scales against the borrower, since, should the pledge remain unredeemed and be sold for less than was lent upon it, he has to make good the difference. This official is paid at the rate of 3/4% upon loans and renewals, and 3% on the amount obtained by the sales of forfeited pledges. The borrower has to pay an agents fee of 2%, which is deducted from the loan. Private pawnshops also exist in Italy, under police authority; but they charge very high interest.

France
The National Assembly destroyed the monopoly of the Paris monti de pietà, but it struggled on until 1795, when the competition of the money-lenders compelled it to close its doors. So great, however, were the extortions of the usurers that the people began to clamour for its reopening, and in July 1797 it recommenced business with a fund of ~20,000 found by five private capitalists. At first, it charged interest at the rate of 36% per annum, which was gradually reduced, the gradations being 30, 24, 18, 15, and finally 12% in 1804. In 1806 it fell to 9%, and in 1887 to 7%. In 1806 Napoleon I re-established its monopoly, while Napoleon III, as prince-president, regulated it by new laws that are still in force. In Paris the pledge-shop is, in effect, a department of the administration; in the French provinces it is a municipal monopoly; and this remark holds good, with modifications, for most parts of the continent of Europe.

The Paris mont de piété undertakes to lend four-fifths of the intrinsic value of articles made from the precious metals, and two-thirds of that of other articles. The maximum and minimum that may be advanced are also fixed. The latter varies in different parts of the country from one to three francs, and the former from a very small sum to 10,000 francs that is the rule in Paris. Loans are granted for 12 months with right of renewal, and unredeemed pledges may then be sold by auction, but the proceeds may be claimed by the borrower at any time within three years. Pledges may be redeemed by instalments.

In Paris the rate charged is 7%, and even then the business is conducted at a loss except in regard to long and valuable pledges. Some of the French provincial rates are as high as 12%, but in almost every case they are less than they were prior to the legislation of 1851 and 1852. The French establishments can only be created by decree of the president of the Republic, with the consent of the local conseil communal. In Paris, the prefect of the Seine presides over the business; in the provinces, the mayor is the president. The administrative council is drawn one-third each from the conseil communal, the governors of charitable societies, and the townspeople. A large proportion of the capital required for conducting the institutions has to be raised by loan, while some part of the property they possess is the product of gifts and legacies. The profits of the Paris mont de pit are paid over to the Assistance Publique, the comprehensive term used by France to indicate the body of charitable foundations. Originally this was the rule throughout France, but now many of them are entirely independent of the charitable institutions. Counting the head office, the branches and the auxiliary shops, the Paris establishment has its doors open in some 50 or 60 districts; but the volume of its annual business is infinitely smaller than that transacted by the London pawnbrokers. The amount to be advanced by a municipal pawnshop is fixed by an official called the commissaire-priseur, who is compelled to load the scales against the borrower, since, should the pledge remain unredeemed and be sold for less than was lent upon it, he has to make good the difference. This official is paid at the rate of 3/4% upon loans and renewals, and 3% on the amount obtained by the sales of forfeited pledges. This is obviously the weakest part of the French system.

Somewhere between 40 and 50 French towns possess municipal pawnshops, a few of which, like those of Grenoble and Montpellier, having been endowed, charge no interest. Elsewhere the rate varies from nil in some towns, for very small pledges, to 10%. The constant tendency throughout France has been to reduce the rate. The great establishment in Paris obtains part of its working capital reserves and surplus forming the balance by borrowing money at a rate varying from 2 to 3% according to the loan term (duration). By law, the Paris mont de pit makes advances upon securities at 6%, plus a duty of 5 centimes upon every hundred francs. The maximum that can be lent in this way is 20. Up to 80% is lent on the face value of government stock and on its own bonds, and 75% upon other securities; only 60% may be advanced on railway shares. These advances are made for six months. Persons wishing to borrow a larger sum than 16 francs from the Paris mont de pit have to produce their papers of identity. In every case, a numbered metal check is given to the customer, and a duplicate is attached to the article itself. The appraising clerks decide upon the sum that can be lent, and the amount is called out with the number. If the borrower is dissatisfied he can take away his property, but if he accepts the offer he has to give particulars of his name, address, and occupation. Experts calculate that every transaction that involves less than 22 francs results in a loss to the Paris mont de pit—only those that exceed 85 francs are profitable. The average loan is under 30 francs.

Spain
Monts de piété in Spain were closely connected with savings banks. The system grew until in 1840 the mont de pit began to receive the sums deposited in the savings bank, which had just been established, for which it paid 5% interest. In 1869 the two institutions were united. This official pawnshop charged 6% upon advances for periods varying from four to twelve months, according to the nature of the article pledged, and a further months grace was allowed before the pledges were sold by auction. Private pawnbrokers were also common, especially in Madrid, often with much higher rates of interest but which made larger advances than their official rivals, and which did business during more convenient hours.

Portugal
In Portugal the monte pio is an amalgamation of bank, benefit society and pawnshop. Its business consists chiefly in lending money upon marketable securities, but it also makes advances upon plate, jewelry, and precious stones, and it employs officially licensed valuers. The rate of interest varies with the bank rate, which it slightly exceeds, and the amount advanced upon each article is about three-fourths of its certified value. There is in Portugal a second class of loan establishment answering exactly to the English pawnshop. The pawnbroker is compelled to deposit a sum, in acceptable securities, equal to the capital he proposes to embark, and the register of his transactions must be submitted quarterly to the chief of the police for examination. As regards small transactions, there appears to be no legal limit to the rate of interest. The sale of unredeemed pledges is governed by the law affecting the monte pio geral.

Russia
In imperial Russia the state maintained two pawnbroking establishments, one at St Petersburg and the other at Moscow, but only articles of gold and silver, precious stones and ingots of the precious metals are accepted by them. Advances are made upon such securities at 6% per annum, and the amounts of the loans are officially limited. Loans run for twelve months, with a months grace before unredeemed pledges are put up to auction. The bulk of this class of business in Russia was, however, conducted by private companies, which advance money upon all descriptions of movable property except stocks and shares. The interest charged was not allowed to exceed 1% per month, but there is an additional charge of 4% per month for insurance and safekeeping. The loan runs for a year, with two months grace for redemption before sale. There were also pawnshops conducted by individuals, who find it very difficult to compete with the companies. These shops can only be opened by a police permit, which runs for five years, and security, varying from 100 to 700, has to be deposited; 2% per month is the limit of interest fixed, and two months grace is allowed for redemption after the period for which an article is pledged.

Denmark
Pawnbroking in Denmark dates from 1753, when the Royal Naval Hospital was granted the monopoly of advancing money on pledges and of charging higher interest than the law permitted. The duration of a loan is three months, renewals being allowed. The old law was extended in 1867, and now all pawnbrokers have to be licensed by the municipalities and to pay a small annual licence fee. The rate of interest varies from 6 to 12% according to the amount of the loan, which must not be less than 7d., and unredeemed pledges must be sold by auction.

Sweden
Sweden has no statutes specifically aimed at pawnbroking, with the exception of a proclamation by the governor of Stockholm that prohibits lending money on articles suspected being stolen. By the end of the 19th century individuals still carried on the business on a small scale, but the bulk of it was conducted by companies. For many years Stockholm had a municipal establishment that charged 10% for loans paid out of the city funds. The cost of administration was so great that the establishment suffered an annual loss, and so it was abolished in 1880 when a private company called the Pant Aktie Bank ('pawn bond bank') formed, with rivals soon following. The money was lent for three months, and at the end of five months the pledge, if unredeemed, was sold by auction under very carefully prescribed conditions.

In Norway a police licence was required for lending money on pawn where the amount advanced did not exceed 4, 10s. Beyond that sum no licence was necessary, but the interest charged could not exceed such a rate as the king may decide.

Switzerland
Switzerland tightly controlled pawnbroking, with licences authorised by the cantonal government and police able to inspect pawnbrokers' books. Pawnbrokers could only charge interest of 1% per month for six months, with further rules dictating the sale at auction of unredeemed pledges. Very few pawnbrokers existed in Switzerland, where it was more common for people to sell items to second-hand dealers in the hope of subsequently buying them back.

Post-1945
Pawnbroking declined after the Second World War due to an increase in social welfare provision by governments and consumer credit by banks. Many pawnbrokers attempted to modernise their image and diversify their businesses.

Since the 1980s the decline of pawnbroking has stabilised, and even increased in some areas, with many people using pawnbrokers as an alternative to bank or payday loans.

Symbol

The pawnbroker's symbol shows three balls suspended from a bar and has been widely used since the mid-18th century. The origins of the symbol are unclear, but it is often attributed to the Medici family of Florence, Italy. The family insignia featured rounded objects, which may have represented gold coins or rocks. According to one legend, a Medici employed by Charles the Great slew a giant using three bags of rocks. Since the Medici family were so successful in the financial, banking, and money-lending industries, other families also adopted the symbol. Throughout the Middle Ages, coats of arms bore three balls, orbs, plates, discs, coins and more as symbols of monetary success.

Another theory attributes the symbol to the Lombards. Pawn shop banking originated under the name of Lombard banking, and many European towns called the pawn shop the "Lombard". The three golden balls were originally the symbol medieval Lombard merchants hung up in front of their houses.

A third theory links the symbol to Saint Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of pawnbrokers. According to legend, he gave a bag of gold to three poor girls to save them from destitution, and these three bags of gold became the three orbs of the symbol.

It has been conjectured that the golden balls were originally three flat yellow effigies of byzants, or gold coins, laid heraldically upon a sable field, but that they were presently converted into balls the better to attract attention.

Pawnbrokers (and their detractors) joke that the three balls mean "Two to one, you won't get your stuff back".

In the late 20th century some pawnbrokers responded to a decline in the industry by removing the traditional symbol.

See also
Mount of piety (Mont de Piété)

Notes

Sources and references

P
.History
Pawnbroking, history

History of pawnbroking