When a character has run out of cash, and they're all out of options, one common action for them to take is to sell a prized possession for money. These items are often ones with sentimental value: a necklace from their deceased grandmother, a valuable childhood toy, or maybe an original copy of their favorite book.
Often done to show that a character's life is going badly, or how far they've sunk in their Descent into Addiction. Sometimes, a character will give the money to a friend, love interest, or family member, to show that they really do care about them. The character may get the object back at the end of the story.
Frequently, these characters sell their beloved items at pawn shops, which hold the items as collateral for a designated period before putting them up for sale. This allows the lendees to retrieve their possessions if they receive the needed money from some other source before the loan's due date.
Super-Trope to Gift of the Magi Plot. Compare Sentimental Sacrifice and Prized Possession Giveaway.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In one episode of Ojamajo Doremi, the characters give away a well-loved shirt in order to get more magic spheres, which are used like currency in the Witch World in addition to their use for magic.
Comic Books
- One issue of Star Wars (Marvel 1977), called "The Third Law", has the story of Princess Leia visiting a planet of bankers to secure a loan, with which to purchase more fighter spacecraft. As collateral, the Princess has brought the Crown Jewels of Alderaan, one of a rare few things to survive its destruction. Of course, Darth Vader is there, too, conducting nefarious business for The Empire, ostensibly to thwart the loan. Vader's true mission is to attain the Crown Jewels by bribing a bank official.
- One issue of Transmetropolitan has a poor mother pawn her child's stuffed toy so they can buy a trait that removes their need to eat. Spider runs into the child while her mother is in the trait shop, and decides to pay off the toy.
Film - Animated
- A more saddening version of this occurs in Annabelle's Wish. When the Holder family forcibly take the titular baby cow away from the farm where she lives as compensation for her and Billy accidentally smashing through their fence, Billy's grandfather finds himself having to sell the music box that had belonged to his dead daughter (Billy's mother) in order to get the money needed to buy Annabelle back. But when the sheriff reveals the music box's origins to Mr. Holder, realizing he may have been a bit too mean, he lets the grandfather have the music box back.
- Despicable Me 3: After Gru is fired from his job, Agnes sells her beloved stuffed unicorn toy to a neighborhood kid in order to raise some money for him.
- Onward: Corey, the manticore, sold her enchanted sword, the Curse Crusher, to a pawn shop owner several years before the start of the film when she ran into some "tax trouble". Prior to selling it, she loved the sword so much, she had it tattooed on her arm.
- A variant occurs in Shark Tale when Angie gives Oscar her grandmother's pearl so that he can pay Mr. Sykes the 5,000 clams he owes him. Angie later gets the pearl back in the form of a necklace after Oscar uses the pearl to bet in a seahorse race.
- In the early treatment of Beauty and the Beast, when Belle's family fell upon hard times, she encouraged Maurice to sell her mother's music box (which he had given to her as a birthday gift).
Film - Live-Action
- A variant occurs in Deck the Halls: Buddy is so determined to make his home's Christmas light show visible from space that he pawns his wife's heirloom vase to pay for a bigger spectacle.
- The Incredible Hulk (2008): When Bruce and Betty become fugitives and need money, Betty has to sell her precious necklace, which is a keepsake of her late mother. Thankfully, Bruce manages to get it back to her at the end of the movie.
- Down in the Delta: A silver candelabra known as Nathan has been in the Sinclair family ever since the slave Jesse Sinclair stole it from his masters during the Civil War. Rosa sells Nathan to a pawn shop for $375 in order to buy bus tickets for her daughter and grandkids to send them to live with relatives for a summer, which she believes is the best way to keep the family together in the long run. They have until September to make enough money to buy Nathan back before it's melted down.
Literature
- Jack and the Beanstalk: Jack and his mother are forced to sell their family cow to make enough money to live. Instead of getting cash for the cow, Jack trades the cow for magic beans.
- Les Misérables:
- M. Mabeuf used to be a prominent horticulturist, but he lost all his money attempting to grow indigo. By the time he is introduced, he is now selling off his prized books one by one in an attempt to stay afloat.
- A more traumatic example occurs earlier with Fantine: the things she sells for her daughter Cosette's sake are not only things she loves, but parts of her own body. When Cosette's foster parents the Thénardiers demand more money "to provide her with winter clothes and medicine" (though really they just want the money for themselves), Fantine sells her beautiful blonde hair and her pretty two front teeth, in which she had always taken special pride.
- Little Women: When the March girls' father falls ill in Washington, Jo sells her long chestnut hair, her "one beauty," to pay for a train ticket so their mother can go and nurse him. She pretends not to mind the sacrifice, but cries about it in bed that night.
- Little Men: Nat is accused of theft, but nobody believes that he's innocent because he's been known to tell white lies in the past. Nat's friend Dan owes Nat, so Dan decides to sell his most prized possession, his nature book, so he can give the money to the theft victim and get them off of Nat's back. Dan does get the book back in the end, and the real thief returns the victim's money.
- In The Sisters Grimm, after the town's mayor introduces insanely high taxes, Relda Grimm is forced to put many of her possessions on a yard sale, including her beloved honeymoon souvenirs. Fortunately, she only parts with several of them before the family's friends come to help with all the money the Grimms need.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Prior to the story, Viserys and Daenerys are an exiled prince and princess from the recently deposed Targaryen dynasty, hiding out in Essos. Daenerys's narration notes Viserys slowly had to sell their family heirlooms to get by, and states that the last bit of kindness in him died when he had to sell their dear mother's crown.
Live-Action TV
- After Rebecca burns down the bar on Cheers, Sam discovers that it's not insured against fire (for some reason) and he's unable to get a loan for the repairs, so he's forced to sell his Corvette to get the money. He gets it back in a later episode when the person he sold it to dies and his wife doesn't have much use for it.
- Good Times: A friend of the Evans family was The Gambling Addict, and got caught stealing the wedding present he gave them. John actually let him take it, saying "You know how much it means to us. If gambling means more to you, then take it. But if you do, there's no doubt about it: you're sick." The friend insisted he didn't have a problem, then took the gift.
Tabletop Games
- In the Pathfinder adventure "Wrath of the Righteous" (and its CRPG adaptation Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous), it's revealed that the half orc paladin Irabeth Tirablade sold her beloved sword to buy an Elixir of Sex Shift for her transgender wife Anevia.
Theatre
- In La Bohème, Colline sells his beloved overcoat to provide medical care for the gravely ill Mimí. He even sings a farewell aria to the coat in which he praises how well it's served him. Unfortunately, by the time he comes back with the money, Mimí has already died.
- In the musical of Les Misérables, as in the novel, Fantine sells her long, beautiful hair to provide for her daughter Cosette, as well as a locket that was the only jewelry she owned. (She doesn't sell her teeth in the stage version, though, although she does in the film version.)
Video Games
- Assemble With Care: Near the end of the game, Helena sells her prized camera to help fund Carmen's cafe.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series: In the episode "Beware the Grey Ghost", actor Simon Trent is perpetually unemployed due to being typecast as the character of the Grey Ghost. He has a large collection of Grey Ghost merchandise, but is forced to slowly sell it to a collector's shop to pay his rent. The nail in the coffin is that the shop owner will only pay a pittance, as the stuff isn't moving, since the Grey Ghost is a forgotten TV show with at least one Missing Episode.
- BoJack Horseman: Princess Carolyn's ancestors were immigrants who slowly sold all their jewelry and valuables to stay solvent in America. Her treasured necklace is the last thing remaining from The Old Country, which is why she values it so much. Subverted. It turns out this story was a lie and the necklace was a department store trinket bought by her Lower-Class Lout mother.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In the episode "One False Movie," Mac had to finance the budget for the film he and Bloo are making because he carelessly bought "necessary" equipment like a megaphone. He had to sell his collections of Rocket Wars figures just to fund the movie.
- Deconstructed in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: In the episode, "How Much is that Rabbit in the Window" Christopher wants to recover Rabbit after he has been taken in as a stuffed animal for sale. When he finds himself unable to retrieve him, he offers the shopkeeper all his love in exchange for getting Rabbit back.
- The Raccoons: In "The Chips Are Down!", Bert buys bags of potato chips to win a contest for a new bike, not knowing the contest is rigged to maximize profit. When he runs out of money, he sells his most prized possessions, but he gets mad when he finds out he only made $5 after everything is sold. Fortunately, after he realizes the contest wasn't worth it, he finds out his friends got it all back for him.
- In the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Junk Junkies", Rocko holds a Garage Sale to earn the money he needs to pay his $500.00 pizza bill. When he needs just $200.00 more, someone offers him that money for his beloved childhood pogo stick. Not wanting to have to deliver pizzas to pay off his bill, Rocko reluctantly sells the pogo stick. After the garage sale ends, Rocko meets Mr. Onion Head, his beloved childhood toy, who reminds him of all the good times he had with his pogo stick, convincing him to buy it back. Rocko ends up having to use the $500.00 he saved to buy the pogo stick back. Fortunately for him, he still gets the money he needs to pay the pizza bill because the melted G.I. Jimbo action figure Heffer donated is sold for $500.00 to an art lover who mistakes it for a sculpture.
- The Simpsons: One episode had Homer pawn the family TV set to pay for a family therapy session. When the family is still dysfunctional despite using the therapist's most drastic measures, Homer takes advantage of the therapist's "cured or double your money back" guarantee to buy a much better TV.
- The TaleSpin episode "Save The Tiger" has Baloo dun Shere Khan for goodies after saving the tiger's life. Nefarious thugs kidnap Baloo, and issue a ransom demand to Rebecca. The only way to generate enough cash to meet the ransom is by Rebecca selling Hire For Hire, the air cargo business she'd banked her future upon.
- Taz-Mania: In "Gone To Pieces", Taz accidentally breaks Jean's Priceless Ming Vase when he plays tiddlywinks with his bottle cap collection. Worried what Jean will say when she finds out it's broken, he tries to fix the vase, but each attempt results in him breaking it even more than before. Eventually, Taz decides to sell his bottle cap collection to raise the money for a replacement vase. In the end, it was revealed that Jean was planning to sell the vase at her next garage sale for five dollars. Taz destroys the replacement vase out of frustration when he realizes he sold his bottle cap collection for nothing.
