Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to pawn, esp. to pawn for more than an article is actually worth; thus moskeener, a pawnbroker.

1873		Sl. Dict. 229: Moskeneer to pawn with a view to obtaining more than the actual value of an article.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 6: Moskeneer - To pawn with a view to obtaining more than the actual value of the article.
1886		Sporting Times 20 Feb. 5/4: The Talepitcher deposed that he had been deputed by the defendants to mashkin the articles produced, but had failed to procure and advance. By the Magistrate: Mashkin was the Italian for pledging, as spoken in Petticoat Lane, Saffron Hill and other Continental watering-places.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 176: Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; / Or moskeneer, or flash the drag.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 100: Sometimes he moschkeners good stuff – Brummagem – and sells the duckets.
1896		Sporting Times 11 Sept. 1/4: Let us suppose it’s a watch you want to pawn. [...] ‘How much?’ said the Moskeener. ‘Ten pounds, please.’ Then he opens the case, and lifts off the plate, and sniffs two or three times, and says, ‘Fiften bob do?’.
1903		Sporting Times 3 Oct. 2/3: Attenborough’s first recognised that when a man makes particular request to have his watch kept wound he is moskeening it its full value.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 17 Aug. 3/4: [Y]ou may chance it and moskin your winter top-coat, lor it has already ceased to be a hardship to go without it.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Done for the Double’ in Three Elephant Power 135: ‘I moskenoed his block and tackle, and blued it in the school.’ In other words, he had pawned the boy’s watch and chain, and had lost the proceeds at pitch and toss.