The pawnbrokers' symbol is three golden balls suspended from a bar. The three-ball symbol may be indirectly attributed to the Medici family of Florence, Italy, owing to its symbolic meaning in heraldry. This refers to the Italian region of Lombardy ,where pawn shop banking originated under the name of Lombard banking.
Most European towns called the pawn shop the "Lombard". The Lombards were a banking community in medieval London England. According to legend, a Medici employed by Charlemange slew a giant using three bags of rocks. The three-ball symbol became the family crest. Since the Medicis were so successful in the financial, banking, and moneylending 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.
Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers. The symbol has also been attributed to the story of Nicholas giving a poor man's three daughters each a bag of gold so they could get married.