Angels

'Tis the season.

I found another one.  Seriously, it's the third I've seen in a year or so, and this one was a quarter.

Look at everything even when you've seen a million of them.  (Especially when you've seen a million of them.)

Happy Holidays!

And happy hunting!

December

And I thought I was out of it in October ...

I've been selling some things on eBay.  More like obsessed with it.  I've spent more hours photographing, writing up, and mailing than I have hunting, which is fine since yard sales are always labor intensive.  The fact that this is an internet yard sale shouldn't matter at all.  It's just a different kind of labor.

Anyway, I cleared closets from July to October (steadily - the rest of the year before that intermittently) and I figure I sent half the crap to the landfill, two-thirds of what was left was inherited forward - to thrift shops all around my area - and that last one-third went to family and friends (some) or to the line waiting for eBay.  I've sold maybe ... one-twentieth of that.  Because I'm so tired, I'm thinking I need to donate some more or get a booth at a flea market somewhere; eBay is a pain.  But I'm not completely ready to stop the yard sale yet.  See, I'm using the proceeds to get some things done around here, like this ...

Before:

And after:

Not too bad, huh?  My goal is to get the main floor at least painted and refurbished - this was definitely the most extensive work done so far.  You might notice the bath tile is still the green but I put up a curtain that linked the blue and green - not too shabby for someone with no taste at all, huh?  (But I had to hire a plumber for more work than I'd wish on my worst enemy, and I even had to hire a tile guy - my back, and the rest of me, is currently on a strict yoga diet so I'll never have to do that ever again.)

Anyway, eBay didn't pay for all of it, but between points from my credit cards (the tile, textiles, and towel bars) and selling things I didn't even remember I'd bought (the tile guy), the great deals (mirror) and the tax break I foresee with all that donated stuff (the sink and vanity), the hit to my checkbook wasn't nearly as painful as I'd imagined it would be.  It was even kind of fun.  I'm turning my sights to my kitchen now (I'm thinking the walls should be orange ...)

More on that later ...

Happy Holidays!  And Happy Hunting!

Alive

Wedding over. Guests gone. Four months of my life now just a gut-spot on my mental windshield. Is it really October?

Didn't hunt too much but what I did find is amazing. Pictures of best and quirkiest soon (and the DIY stuff I did) as soon as I catch up on my sleep.

Guess that means another month then.

Happy hunting! And happy holidays!

Busy-ness

I gave up on thrifts and yard sales weeks ago.  Not because I was finding little or nothing (though that didn't hurt) but because ... well, you figure it out ...

Yesterday I paid someone to tear three layers of vinyl and linoleum from my kitchen and one bathroom - porcelain tile goes down next week.  I have a plumber coming next week after that, an electrician two weeks later, and a tree guy at the end of August.  I'm headed toward Ikea tomorrow to fill in some spaces and to find something better for storage and display.  Labor Day I plan to paint - all over I will paint.

In between the DIY deluge, I am tidying the landscape, pulling for eBay (and charity - 12 boxes given away so far), tutoring students and teaching classes.

I'm ready to sleep for a few months, but not until after the family comes in for Head Trip's wedding ... and leaves.  Then I plan to ... zzzzzzz...

Finally, The Answers

In brief.  It's all I have time for these days.

Watch #1:  If you have actually been reading for awhile, you should recognize this one - I inherited it a few years ago.  It was my grandmother's.  My mother told me she had it (and that it was platinum and emeralds), that I would have it one day, and that she didn't know where it lay so she could give it to me "now."  I found it after she passed when my sibs and I went through her two storage lockers, buried in the middle of a box, beneath a small TV, along with all the rest of my grandmother's jewelry.  Not platinum but plated, not emeralds but glass.  Don't care.  It was a graduation present (I believe) to my Grandmama from her father.  (Besides, the earrings that were also in the box - that only I wanted - were gold and about two carats of diamonds.  I remember playing with them when I was a child and knocking out two of the tiny stones.  I fixed them as an adult.  What goes around, comes around.)

Watch #2:  If you said this one, you are right!  Found in a thrift shop, filthy and black in many places, with no band but with a label that said "silvertone", it couldn't have been appealing since it had been sitting awhile.  I opened it, looked at the back ("Belais 18K") and said "yes, please!"  The sapphires are likely synthetic, as was the habit of the day, but they actually look pretty real to me.  (By the way - I cleaned overenthusiastically, with Barkeep's Friend, which is the only thing that would even soften the black crud.  NOT good for that lovely, characteristic swirl on the inside back cover.  :(  Sad.)

Watch #3:  Not even gold plated.  Probably sold at Woolworth's in the day.  Still works, though, when none of the others do (except sporadically)!  What does that tell you?

Watch #4:  "14K Over Metal" (inside back) is just another way of saying gold plated, but with thicker plate.  And over 1/2 ct of real diamonds.  All that bling on a fairly cheap box.  Really don't understand people from the first two decades of the 20th century.

Watch #5:  14K gold plated (even says so), synthetic sapphires.  Very common.  Easy to confuse with #2, huh?  Actually, it looks better than #2 did when I found it so likely, if placed side-by-side then, this one would've won hands down.  Might still, if anyone looks inside the real one.

So, how good were you?

Happy hunting!!

Disaster

Just a quick sidebar (before the answers to the quiz) because I had an epiphany over the weekend.  Why?  The storm that moved across the country on Friday slammed into us in the night, literally.  Trees, power lines, branches, and anything that wasn't locked down flew around like paper cups in front of a wave up a beach, killing several people in our area and scaring the crap out of everyone else.  Seriously, I thought our entire house was going to be air surfing into the river, dragging us along with it.  But thanks to both our abilities to set aside panic in a crisis (the Big Lug's much more than mine this time) and my husband's incredibly hard work, we rode it out without loss of life, limb or property.

So what the post?  We had no power, no TV, and no phones (even cell stuff was seriously effed up) - and since our pump is electric (and a sewer injector) my kitchen sink had a bucket in it so I could use it ... then empty it into the garden.  We had 100 degree temps during the day on Saturday and Sunday so meals involved sniffing and even tasting to decide what was going bad fastest so we'd eat it soonest.  Sleeping was fitful and wet ... and very, very dark.  Travel was difficult and futile since nothing nearby was open.  Walking was (maybe) for early in the morning.  Bathing was twice a day.

And I loved it.

I hadn't noticed how much water I waste until I was collecting it.  I hadn't considered how much of my day revolved around TV (even as I bitched I was so busy).  I hadn't realized how many lights I turned on out of habit during a day.  I didn't remember how much I missed ... camping.

Or something like it.  We weren't completely roughing it - we had clean water, and (since we're natural gas) we had a stovetop and no cold showers.  Also, since we bought a generator years ago (but never used it before) we didn't have to bail the sump area for long, nor did we lose the chest freezer full of food (though the fridge, upstairs, was doomed).  I washed every dish by hand, I spent the mornings working (slower) on clearing & cataloging for the sale and reading in the living room lit only by the sun, then late afternoons in the basement (where it's much cooler) being quiet (it's also darker) and going through some storage (when I could see it), then the nights reading on my iPad because I had no other light and it was too bloody hot to sleep (damn that battery lasts forever).  My husband and I spent many wonderful hours just ... talking, holding hands, working together, being together.  It was amazing.  I was almost sad that the power came back on.

Why?  I loved sweating out the toxins and letting my brain go quiet and playing MacGuyver with every meal and having no clients or family or telemarketers calling.  I adored actually feeling the air, listening to the earth, meeting my neighbors (many for the first time) as we walked around (in the mornings) to assess the damage and get our blood pumping.  I revered all of the slower, and silent, and grateful thoughts that I was finally able to think without all the chatter from all the "civilized" bits of our world that we surround ourselves with every single day.

So now I'm writing this by the light of the sun alone.  My a/c is cranked up to 80 and I have a floor fan taking up the slack.  I still have the bucket in my sink (my trees get the water) and I plan to install rain barrels at the first opportunity.  My refrigerator is spotless, and neither of us got food poisoning.  And though I didn't get as much done as I'd liked (because I am too old to push it in the house-turned-oven) I have new determination to clear down to the bone so we won't bump around like pinballs in the dark if this happens again.

Not a single complaint from either of us, for two whole days that most people around here refer to as "hell."  A new appreciation for the simple.  Memories of happy times "making do."  And a renewed faith in myself and in the remarkable man I married.

Good God, I can't think of anything that's more worthy of the name "treasure" than this.

Who's Watching the Watches?

I'm always shocked when I realize how long it's been since I've posted.  This time it's not so much about busy as it is about lazy.  I have been travelling, though, so that's gotta count for something - to Texas to get the last of Mama's estate stuff (mostly Rose Point crystal, shipped to my house, two pieces broken so I'm still pushing the shipper for the insurance payout so I can replace them).  The Big Lug and I have also taken a couple of overnighters, just because (he's so romantic).
Not as much hunting as I'd like, but a nice, heavy bracelet tagged "goldtone" (it wasn't) helped to make up for the lost time everywhere else.  Plus, I'm really kicking into high gear with the Purge.  First things hit eBay this week, but lots of crap has been tossed and donated, and I've made the decision to be a vendor at one of our First Saturday sales, for those nice-but-too-big-a-painintheass-to-pack-and-ship pieces.

For today, however, just a quick post ... with a quiz.

These are five of many watches I've collected over the years.  All have silvery cases (though one also has gold color), and all are 1920's or earlier.  Here's a darker but clearer view.

Most actually work.  Two have real stones.  Three are marked with what looked like gold karat marks when I bought them, but only one is actually solid gold (18K).  Can you tell which are which?  And do you know how to tell?

Answers next time ...

Happy hunting!  And happy Independence (from clutter!) Day!

Scraps

Last week I spent cleaning and clearing. I must say I am getting rather fond of empty space - very Zen, very peaceful - as I continue tossing, displaying/using, inheriting forward, and (of course) preparing for the "The World Is Not Ending Dammit" online sale (hm, better but still not there).  I actually fasted hunting the whole week so I could focus on the Purge.  I figured once I did my duty I would step out and magically find amazing things that would thrill my Diva and fill my retirement coffers.

Not so much.

I found things for the Big Lug (this Gordie Howe action figure, among other things):

as well as several bits for grandkids and home.  I ended at our First Saturday flea, looking at everything as I always do, even as I greeted and talked with several of my dealer friends.  I started and ended with my newest treasure, a really nice (and funny!) guy I connected with a few months back.  He asked what I'd found, and since I'm superstitious about looking too closely when I didn't spend much ($5 altogether at the flea) I shrugged and said "bits and pieces."  Normally, I'd wait until I got home, but I was done for the day, and he hasn't heard all my jokes yet so I gathered my finds.

He spotted the not-silver necklace, but I raised an eyebrow and pointed to its companion bracelet (sterling).  He said the ring was copper (I agree - looked good in the sun) but it was dark in the garage, and it was cheap, so while I was disappointed I knew my daughter might still wear it.  He saw the necklace bit and immediately said "that's gold" for the clasp (yep, 14K, and really, really nice cultured pearls), which I bought along with the watch movement.  And then the pendant came out, and he asked me why I'd bought it (good question) - "because that's a pretty lively opal for plate" was my response.  Okay, there was also the "we tested everything and sold all the gold yesterday" from the vendor - that kind of arrogance always makes me want to prove him wrong! And since I then talked him down from $1 each to $1 for the opal and the Shakespeare stamp and that cool (non-silver) religious medal, how could I lose?  (And, yes, the pendant is 14K with o!pal and diamond.)

Scraps.  Bits and pieces.  Things some people would've tossed in the trash.

Not me!

And maybe not you anymore, too, huh?

Thank You!

Thanks to my rather whiney last post, I have begun to catch up on my duties:  I balanced every form of money we have, got Head Trip over to help me with my newest project (The Just-In-Case-the-World-Doesn't-End Yardsale ... gotta get a better name ... due on various auction sites Labor Day 2012), and took huge steps toward my new bedroom and office projects.  Haven't weeded as much as I wanted to (rain, rain, rain!) but obviously I'm going in the right direction because the radar, she is unfogging!

And because I found something very, very good, I wanted to say a serious and heartfelt "thank you."  No, not to you, the reader (though I do thank you ... you one person, you) but to the anonymous person who put a cool yard sale find into my local consignment shop yesterday because she didn't believe what she had, and to all the people who saw it in the case and looked at the description on the tag ... instead of at the hallmarks ... on the necklace and bracelet set ...

I'm not being snotty or superior - I almost understand how even the most hardened of treasure hunters would pass this one up.  And for all I know, even though it was dated yesterday it could've gone out today before the store opened.  But I wanted to put together a little checklist for the next time you find something like this at a yard sale (or anywhere else):

1.  The first thing I always do is (duh) look - not just for marks, because gold isn't always marked in this country (and many times the marks are hidden in the design anyway).  No, I look for "tells" like places where plating has chipped or worn off, or thin prongs holding stones in place instead of thicker blob-like fingers, or even bits that look like pools of molten metal (which often are places where the plating is about to flake away).  I also look for scrapes to see if it's darker beneath, or lighter.  Even hairline scratches to see if it's scratching like gold would.  This was marked "10K" in all the right places, but since it was a herringbone necklace and bracelet set, it was hard to deal with scratches.  A magnet revealed the clasps were metal, but that's not unusual (though a first strike).

2.  Then I feel the piece.  Gold has a soft, buttery, almost fluid feel (especially with chains).  This set was stiffer than those I've held in the past (strike two).  But it was also 10K, not 14K, which is what I tend to favor.  Oddly, since it was wide, I also hesitated because this implied newer rather than older - the style itself is maybe 10 years old, and it's lower-carat, which normally appears with this higher-end, more elgant stuff only when gold is expensive.  (I find CZs and other total crap stones in 14K all the time from an era when gold was $200 to $400 an ounce, so 18K was the norm for good stones.  I even have a pair of earrings someone thought was costume because the ball and hook part were clearly tarnished, and obviously plated.  But the rest of wasn't.  The post and the ruby-laden bobble that dangled from the stud setup is all 14K.  A jewelry guy explained that a hollow sphere is much harder to form than a straight post, especially with soft metal, so in times of low gold prices makers just attached the cheaper plated stuff to the heavy, cast gold bits.  You can feel the difference between the parts.  So I pulled it off the crappy studs and put it onto a shield-fronted pair of wires.  They are amazing!)

3.  Then I think about what I see and feel.  While we all know to avoid certain questionable markings, we frequently assume "Italy" is a safe one.  Not so.  In fact, at the last jewelry show I attended every single dealer I know had at least one "Italy" gold horror story.  However, the norm for fakes these days seems to be 14K.  Plus, these pieces had a model number, one which turned up on lots of older posts when I Googled it.  While fakes have always been with us, it's only been worth that amount of risk to sell them in the last two or three years.  (Maybe strike two-and-a-half.)

4.  All this (nowadays) takes maybe 30 seconds (you wish, right?).  In the end, it all comes down to how much the seller wants for the piece.  On Saturday, I spent nearly 10 minutes with steps 1-3 at a yard sale that had clearly seen a lot of traffic.  This one necklace was still there, probably because the price tag was $200.  It was marked "Italy" and "14K" (faint on one clasp) and the dealers' stories rang in my ears.  I fondled and mentally weighed (I don't pull out a scale at a yard sale) and then fondled some more, looked at the dwindling crowds, and asked if she could come down.  She did, eventually hitting the top end of my range.  I bought it.  (On my way out, I saw a smaller household piece and went back to pay the $1 only to hear the seller telling her mom about my purchase and hearing surprise and pleasure at how much she'd gotten for it.  I'm glad.  I did the same after I got home and weighed it.  Almost squealed like a little girl.)  Rule of thumb, however, is if it's really, really cheap just buy the damned thing and worry about it later.  Despite the high strikes, I didn't hesitate on today's pieces.

5.  Then there's after-buy.  I have a compulsive need to know, so I test stones with mad amounts of things, and gold with acid and/or electronics.  The necklace from today looked ... ravaged; three sections of the herringbone were twisted and crimped.  I decided to try that bit first.  It wasn't encouraging.  But the bits were spiky, and my electronic tester needs a good surface, so I put it on the flat bit.  Great once, but lousy in a second place.  I sagged, then remembered.  DUH!  It's Italian!  With "Italy" pieces, I always, always, always use my trusty pink eraser on the gold first because they're frequently coated with a waxy substance to keep it from scratching in transit.  The gel-based tester doesn't do wax!  It gave me no trouble at the "erased" parts, but I was leery because of the weird readings, so I went to acid.  Acid doesn't give a rat's ass about wax, but it will give a higher reading with heavily plated things sometimes so after you rub the piece on the stone, you have to look at the resulting scrape on the gold to see any variation in color, then maybe even dunk it in one level higher acid to see if it turns the cut green.  That means plate.  (It it doesn't discolor it doesn't mean it's real, just a much better chance - nothing is foolproof.)   Today's bits passed with flying colors!

Okay, the moral of this rather involved story is this:  If it's cheap and/or you love it, buy it!  But if you decide to sell it, don't assume it's crap before you test the bejeebies out of it.  If you don't, you won't price it well, and someone like me will pay $1 per gram for your castoffs.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you ... !!!!

What a Difference a Week Makes

Okay, new stats:  This week I ... travelled twice as far, found half as much (by count), and spent twenty (yes, two-oh) times more than I did last week.  But it's my own fault - I blew off my responsibilities this week more times than I could count.  Not for any good reason, just a bit of melancholy with a hefty dose of chum-in-the-water sharky goodness that made me haunt every thrift and consignment in a ten mile radius (fruitlessly, for the most part).

Gotta clean this house.  Gotta keep my promises.  Gotta win at least one battle with the weeds.

Maybe after I watch the newest Sherlock ...

The 13th Part Second

I didn't realize how much time had passed between my last post and this.  I reread my last post.  Huh.  A bit wild-eyed, no?  And yet, it's all true.

April was good to me.  May started well, took a break, then started up again, with a bang last weekend.  This week has been a series of great finds, some rare pieces at fair prices (a turn-of-the-century Eastern Star brooch for a bit under melt!) and a few amazing pieces at astonishing prices (five pieces of Bunnykins by Royal Daulton, including a nursery bowl, none dated, for $18).  Yesterday was Community Yard Sale heaven in my area so I stayed local.  However, because we're expecting a series of storms, I knew I had to get the entire front sweep of sidewalk trenched (no mere edging after a year of neglect) and so I vowed to limit my time in The Hunt, knowing that I would be fine no matter what (if anything) I found.

Amazing what a change of attitude can do for a Bunny.  Again.

Found:  Sterling (several pieces), sterling and 18K earrings (heavy and gorgeous), pearl necklace and matching bracelet (with 10K clasps), two Vera Bradley wallets, a 14K "World's Greatest Friend" pendant, several costume crosses and earrings, 14K and pearl studs, an old organizational pin marked "solid gold" (which, by the way, usually means plated but this time was actually 14K), a carved carnelian pendant (huge!), a 10K baby ring, a pair of 14K Zodiac studs plus two singles, a heavy duty stapler (for my SAT tests), a magnifying glass, and a gun rug.  Most of the jewelry was from just two sellers, one of whom brought it out because I asked if she had any jewelry!

Time spent:  about 3 hours, mostly in my own neighborhood's parking lot while people unloaded (did not buy a single thing there).

Total miles driven:  14.

Total spent:  $9.50.

Wild-eyed, maybe.  Crazy?  No way!

Superstition

I used to believe that Friday the 13th was lucky for me. I almost always got money on 13th days, after all, especially Fridays the 13th. One day I relized that I got money on 15ths and 30ths or 31sts more often (paydays), and that it was time for this triskaidekaphiliac to fuggitaboutit. So today I would've forgotten what day it was. Except Mama Angel had other ideas.

It began with my usual routine - up at 5:15, write for an hour or so, make some hot cereal then head to the bathroom for a few rounds on my portable Yahtzee game while I ... uh, let my breakfast cool. Since today is the Big Lug's day off (every other Friday) we talked about taking a day trip, but the day got away from us. Then I remembered the little pull I'd felt yesterday when I went out to hunt, the third store on a mental list of three that I didn't get to before my students got me. We decided to stay local instead and check it out.

In the store, one I hadn't been in for months, the twirly display thing was broken and had to be turned by a clerk, who was crazy busy - the store was packed! I waited. There were some very nice but expensive pieces on the shelf-type displays but I could also see very big prices - I was in a rich area surrounded by people who usually - but not always - know how much things are worth. I waited some more. Then help came, she spun, and I found a reasonably priced 14k toe ring (perfect for my summer feet) a pair of "sterling and diamond" earrings, and a huge pair in a style I thought I recognized (I did, they were 14k, tagged yesterday, and cheap). We had lunch at a fabulous Turkish restaurant, bought a couple more nice pieces at reasonable prices in an antique store, and headed home to eat, watch Lost Girl, and go to bed.

As I came back to bed, I realized those monster earrings I bought had been $13 (I checked) on Friday the 13th (and weighed 10.3 grams - extra zeroes don't count). I started laughing. I told the Big Lug I was tempted to become superstitious again, but that I knew it was just a super joke on me. He rolled his eyes.

Still chuckling at the feathered one's humor, I finished as I began the day - in the loo hitting the Yahtzee's "start" button.

First score was a Yahtzee! I guffawed. I know an affirmation when I see it.

Second, Yahtzee. I told the Lug and grinned.

Third and fourth, Yahtzee! I roared with laughter.

A few regular rolls, several four of a kinds, then a fifth Yahtzee and a full ticket.

Old record (between me and hubby) 636. New one ...

713.

(Okay, it was 710 but it's still a great day!)

Happy hunting!

Heresy

Warning:  this blog contains graphic images of dismemberment that could cause strong palpitations, offense, or just annoyance in weaker individuals.  Please read with caution!

But before we get to the investigative autopsy, I wanted to post a picture of "the ring" from the last blog.  Seriously, I wrote the entire post while I walked, even took the picture on my phone, but I couldn't figure out how to embed it.  Yes, I could've fixed it when I got home.  Where's the fun in that?

ACK!  Speak of the devil!  I just (literally now) went to retrieve the photo I emailed to myself from my phone camera, hitting the usual blogspot button to do so, and what do I find?  It asked me if I wanted to get the image from my phone!  Damn!  I leave for a couple of months, and they change everything!

No, not hard to tell I took this while walking - well, I paused there, of course.  (Crap, I have old hands, don't I?  Thank heaven for blurry pictures!)  If you didn't remember what "barley twist" meant, now you do.

And no, the ring isn't the focus of today's post, but it sort of fits in.  How?  It's all about learning.

So, a few years back, I found a pair of sterling ("weighted") candlesticks at a yard sale one day, another at an estate sale within hours.  Then a Revere comport (20's, I think) a couple of weeks later.  And dozens of plated things over the next few months.  I began a Gather.  I had the idea that I would have all sorts of formal, shiny things in my dining room (y'know, because I entertain so much ... not).  Well, long story short, I decided I liked color more than grayish, and decided to eject the silver and simply add to my great-grandmother's glorious, multi-hued collection of carnival glass.

Last Fall, I donated boxes of silverplate to an animal shelter (that has a thrift store), but not the sterling.  I decided to play mad scientist instead.  I really, really had to see what it meant when it said "weighted."

So I started in, first with a pair of pliers.  I thought it would be easy.  It's not plated, after all, but weighted, right?

No, that's not a demended tulip.  It's the top part of the candlestick, pried open at length by my semi-arthritic hands.  I can't tell you how much work went into that.

This was worse, though, trust me.  That little bit of tough foil took some seriously tight holding of pincers, twisting around to score the stuff before finding a purchase and stripping (which was more like peeling a tree rather than a banana).

Finally got the little bugger loose, though, and laid bare the steel bar.

Gross, right?  And I hurt.  If you're very observant, you might notice the base in the background.  Okay, okay, at some point I figured out I could use a hacksaw to get things moving.  Funny thing was, once I got a nice slicey hole and pulled with the pliers, I found it was actually just layered on anyway.  No hacksaw necessary for the base.

The interesting thing was what it was weighted with - looked like rosin.  Yes, the stuff you spread on a bow if you played violin, viola, cello or base (which I did).  Banged it out with a hammer.  Took less than a minute.

Overall, however, it took nearly 40 minutes to strip that first one.  Kind of theraputic, really - turning a pair of beat-up (yes, dented beyond belief originally) candlesticks into scrap turns out to be good for a treasure hunter's soul.  And knowing really helped, too.





This is the start weight of one candlestick (yes, a three-digit weight).

And that's the end.

Not bad for the pair, considering what I paid for it, but nowhere near what I see these things tagged at antique or even (these days) thrift stores.  Of course, the pair I autopsied in these pictures is not common.  These are.

Look familiar?  I see these all over.  I wish I knew why - they're not particularly pretty, are they? But they were affordable, and this company (especially) knew how to tap into the market.  Let's face it, people with serious money got solid sterling, gold, and porcelain.  The rest of us bought weighted, plated, and milk glass to emulate those whose ranks we aspired to join.  (And now we copy rappers and sports stars, and wear designer names on our asses.  Oh, how far we've come.)

Anyway, you can see it went from 146 grams to 13.  Not plated, true, but not much substance, either.

These particular sticks were weighted by plaster, by the way.  Very messy.  Very, very messy.

Okay, the next pictures might make you faint.  Oh, don't worry, it's not the Revere...

Yes, this is weighted, but it's really quite amazing.  It and a British inkwell are the only things of sterling-not-jewelry that I still own.  They have places of pride in my treasure cabinets (well, my imaginary cabinets, but you know what I mean).

Now.  Onto the pictures I warned you about.

Seriously, did you think it was stupid candlesticks??  Man up and keep watching.

Look familiar?  You've seen these pins in antique malls.  Gold, heavy, t-bar pins in the back, very Victorian, very collectible, yes?  Well, I found one a few days ago in a thrift shop, and since there weren't any hallmarks for the pricers to drool over, and the back was clearly silverish, not gold (which they are sometimes), it was ... quite reasonable.

So I ripped its throat out.

The top is, indeed, gold - and about the same thickness as the sterling "foil" of the candlesticks.  In fact, the things that look sort of like pecans are the bigger pieces of what was the "weighted" bit (and are rosin - very old rosin).  The back is low-grade silver, with two really bad solders that lifted the back from the front and justified, in my twisted mind, the total trashing of an antique.  Amount of gold here - less than 1 gram.  The feeling of relief that I'm recycling a piece of history, priceless.

"Buyer beware" isn't really the message today.  More like "buyer aware".  Many of us learn by blindly picking up anything shiny, with the assumption that it must be worth what it feels like.  Not always. But don't take my post the wrong way - I'm not saying don't buy these things, especially if you love them.

Just buy them smarter.

Happy hunting!!

Freakin' Fridays

If I say "barley twist" would you know what I mean? When it's ivory wrapped in gold, would you remember it from decades ago? Maybe, maybe not, but I've found two pairs of earrings in the last year that would fit at least the mix of materials. And today I found a ring that appeared to match (no pictures - hey, I'm walkin' here!)

When I caught a mark in the store (über-tiny) I thought it said 800. With a branchy thingies that almost looked like a tree. Or a face. Or a really pointy cloud. And I know 800 is silver, right? Low grade at that. But it was at least gold-washed, and I couldn't be sure I saw it correctly, and it was only a couple of bucks, and it had been there over a month, and it didn't feel like silver ... What the heck, it was time to learn!

Now, understand, I've been getting my learning lately in roller-coaster fashion. A big aquamarine in a box lot here, seven watches I thought were 14K there, earrings that had gold posts only (a lot of those lately) and even ten times the fake-marked stuff than I've seen altogether in five years ... the hits, even the great hits, are almost just statistics.  What fun is that?  So lately I've been scaling back, only buying what I could find on the cheap (passing up a couple of gorgeous pieces because I didn't want to spend my entire allowance on them ... sigh).

But this was worth a look, yeah?

Took it home, acid tested it. It held at 14, then 18. Huh. I studied it with the real 30X magnifier, the one that gives me vertigo. Definitely 800, still WTF on the pointy hallmark. So I Googled "800 gold" and got this:

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/285/800marking.jpg

This was almost exactly my mark - some weird-ass moose or giant deer, right? Wouldn't you have shrugged and just left it in the store?  Not if you knew it was Portuguese for 19.2 carat gold!  Which I do now!!!

Dude, if this is what school is all about, I never want to freaking leave!

(Yeah, I really need to stop teaching teenagers.)

Happy hunting!

Another Peek ...

Taxes.  Don't mind paying them, hate tallying receipts for Schedule C's.  Doing a lot of thinking about taxes and hunting lately, and I've come to a few realizations:

1.  I don't buy to resell, so I don't count buys or sales in any tax form any more than I would for clothing or household goods.  Yes, when I buy I won't buy to lose money (in any area!), but that's a hangover from being $75K in debt and crawling out of that hole inch by painful inch over a three-year period.  I do screw up more times than I can count, spend too much on impulse, but that's a hangover from the days when (mall) shopping was therapy - and food was love, and exercise was stupid.  I haven't sold more than I would sell at a yard sale, and I've donated 20 things for every 1 I've sold ... and not junk, either - that ends up recycled or just trash.

2.  I need to get more receipts from the charities I donate to, and donate even more.  Selling is a pain in the *ss.

3.  I vow to work on my metal detector skills this year - thrift shops and yard sale people are going a bit batty with prices.  $10 for a gold plated chain?  Really??


Suffice it to say, I still refuse to cheat anyone, I still refuse to pay more than it's intrinsically worth (or learn not to buy for therapy ... nah), and I still love my life.  I'm just a little number-burned right now.  And I haven't even finished yet.

See you later ... assuming I survive this week, yeah?

Taking a Peek ...

Don't know if I'm done yet, but I can tell you a few things:

1.  My daughter's going in for surgery soon, one that will take months to recover from, so the wedding is moved to October.

2.  I didn't formalize my assets v obligations this year, if only because it's depressing to realize that "the old college try" is the best I can say for my retirement dreams ... as of now.

3.  I'm learning so so sooooo much more than I ever thought I could learn about buying (and selling a few things) on eBay.

4.  I have too many stories rattling around in my head to let them lie any more - does the phrase "critical mass" mean anything to you?

5.  I miss the philosophy of this thing ... and the focus on building net worth to protect our future ... as a treasure in and of itself.

6.  I'm not very good at taking breaks.  From anything.

I'm back.  I just don't know what's coming next.  But I'm planning to find my name on a bestseller in the next three years ...

Happy hunting ... for your bliss!!!