Grab Bag

Slow week.  Too close to the SATs, Memorial Day weekend clear-out in town, all that sort of thing.  Still ...

I really thought this would be all this week - things found in thrift shops, all (sterling earrings, gold ring and bracelet) and not yard sale prices (the bracelet almost drained my payday allowance).  But I did something else this week, something I've never done before:  I bought a grab bag.

We have lots and lots of charity shops in the area.  The one in question isn't one I usually find much in.  It's also the only one I've seen that has big Ziplocs full of jewelry, mostly aimed at beaders.  Priced at $10 a bag, it's not something I've usually taken seriously, especially since what I can see is ... well, "crap" is being nice.  This week, however, in a fit of desperation (and since the whole shop was 50% off) I took a look.

In one bag I caught a glimpse of a 14K clutchback on an earring.  In another, a gold clasp on an onyx necklace.  There were two more bags, kind of light - though they'd been stapled in addition to zipped, all four had been partially opened and obviously looked-through (one more than others).  I bought the other three.  What the hell, right?  Why not a real hunt?

See what I mean?  (That's a serving bowl, not a cereal, and pretty heavy filled.)  As I sorted, I saw tons of single earrings, a flash here and there, and more honest-to-heaven junk than I've ever seen in one place.  Beads skittered across the table.  Tangled necklaces had to be separated.  My fingers were blackened by dirt and tarnish and who-knows-what.

And yet ...

Okay, costume first, the things I think are good enough to donate (yes, even the kid thing).  My favorite is the fan, upper right.  It's gold plated, and folds up just like a real one, even has a pretty, damask-like pattern on it.  Pairs of earrings and dangles, a couple of things that might make good pendants, even some fairly nice vintage rhinestone pieces.

These are all stones, shell, whatever.  Two favorites - the box is a music box, broken beyond my capacity for repair but I know someone who might like to tinker with it; and the square thing in the middle is a very pretty, carved piece of jade, pierced as if it had something bolted in as well.  No idea what I'll do with them, but I have a box full of various real stones ... saved for the day when I turn to jewelry design, or turn into a dragon.

But wait, there's more!

Sterling, with turquoise, crystal, and amber.  The intricate earring in the bottom center has British markings for sterling.  I really wish I had the other because it's gorgeous in person.  FYI, this pile alone would pay for two of the three bags.

This definitely will pay for the other (those are gold beads, too).  But there was more to come.

All 14K, marked pieces on the right and tested on the left (with stones out in two, more for the dragon-bag).

Oh, and one last, small thing ...

I almost put this into the costume, to-be-donated pile, if only because it looked so cheesy - and I mean that literally, for though I couldn't capture the color, it's almost Cheetos-orange.  Even the markings on the back made me think "plated," or maybe patent number.  But it wasn't magnetic, it hefted okay, and since I had some time on my hands without the usual weekend hunt, I decided to test it anyway.  See if you can figure out why my eyes bugged out when I did so.

Do you see it, buried in the middle?  Hard to, because I still didn't believe the tester, so I used a pink eraser to rough it up, a needle to scratch it, and even bent it to make the plating crack (first with my fingers, then with a pliers - which pulled it like taffy, smooth, instead).

Still don't see it?  Tap on the picture and make it bigger.  Look harder.  Harder.

"22CT."

Yeah, it's about like that.

It's not a big pendant (about a pennyweight) but it's definitely a first for me.  And though I tossed about a pound of unfixable, broken metal in my recycles, and I still have about a cupful of beads to deal with (Ziploc and donate, marked "beads"), this little piece made certain that this won't be my last grab bag.

I LOVE treasure hunting!