Crazy Times, Short Post



Why I love consignment shops (14K).




Why I love estate sales (14K).



Why I love thrift stores (9K, one marked Chester 1913).




Why I love metal detectors (22-ish K).



Have a great week!

A Wet Week

Within minutes (it seemed) after my last blog, the heavens opened and poured upon my earth a torrent such as I'd never seen before.  At one point (though I was in a classroom 7 miles away) we apparently received close to 3 inches in about an hour, a rate that was backed up by the mud and leaves that washed over my retaining wall, into my stairwell, and under my basement door - mud and water I found when I returned to the wild shriek of the water alarm.

Luckily, it was just around the door (and backed up in the stairwell, which cleared once I scooped off the drain) so after a few minutes of work we were fine.  Other than finding our our new fridge was (probably) handled roughly and went out of square (causing the corner metal to poke our just far enough to give the gasket a bad fit) and is already going to cost us money to fix (no proof), it's been students, students, and more students as I careen away from vacation and toward the October first SAT.

I had time for a single estate sale, and that on the last day with 20 minutes left before they shut down for the weekend, where my superpowers came through with flying colors.

Is this the coolest thing ever?  It's a group who loves antiques and restoration, one I never knew existed until I found this in the $1 pile (and, yes, it's 10K, and nice and hefty).  The Big Lug says my superpower is finding things everyone else missed.  I think I might have found more than just gold.  Questers 1944 looks like my kind of organization.

Stay tuned to find out!

Travelling Without a Net

I'm a list-making kind of gal, a planner and backup planer.  I like structure.  I like routine.  I like having a map even when I don't get to use it.  I just spent almost two weeks in turmoil, flying by the seat of my pants.

It started with an earthquake.

Not that it was as bad here as it was in Central Virginia, but this California girl didn't much like feeling her house shake while she was standing over a basement.  I've been through two 7-pointers (and above) and I have to tell you, this was the scariest one yet because I was standing over a giant hole.

Then Irene slammed into us.  A tree fell onto a power line, so we went black around 2am, and the Big Lug and I took turns watching the pump hole for rising water.  Yes, we have a generator for that purpose, but since we'd never used it before we didn't know we had it too far from its current ground, and so we need to sink a new one closer to the manual transfer switch.  Helpful hint - don't find this out during a hurricane.  (All turned out well, though, because we've done so much terraforming we had nothing but a trickle of water come in, and that we hand-bailed only twice in the 18 hours we had no power.  Yay!)

Then we went on vacation, and it almost finished me off.

The Big Lug didn't like that I had a list of 50 possible things to see, and three hotels that centered them all already all-but-booked (a loose plan, but a plan nonetheless).  He'd been organized and structured and overscheduled to death at work, and I was pure shake-and-bake from the natural disasters (and the accompanying cancellations of students, and extra, unlooked-for work - our fridge blew during the power surge that knocked out the electricity).  He wanted no plan, no framework, no list.

He wanted to point the car and just ... go.  I wanted to make him happy.  So (trembling a bit) we just ... went.

From Fallingwater in Western PA (on my Bucket List so the only place I insisted on) to back home (a day early thanks to the Noah-like Flood we're still experiencing), we had no motel reservations more than a couple of hours in advance, no restaurant call-aheads at all, and almost no major highway drives.  We went back road to state highway to (once) someone's driveway.  We had no cell signal for most of the trip.  We hit every antique mall he could find on the GPS (though one day I got my consignment and thrift fix).  We ate at places my gut is still trying to shake.  We talked, a lot, and we slept not-so-well at night.

And though mostly I found few things that were great deals (in a thousand miles) I did find a couple:

For the most part I spent too much on things worth not much simply because I had to buy something from the truly fun people we met.  These, however, were the cheapest ($6.40 total for all three) and yet all are 14K (the heart looked better before I tried my hand at knocking out the CZs).  Both pendants were on steel or plated chains, and neither were marked clearly, if at all (looked like "+K" on the back of the pearl ... and diamond) but the earrings are marked well, and sharply (just tiny).  Not a haul to brag about, but no small shakes, either, especially since the Hunt wasn't the purpose of the trip.  I lived by the seat of my pants and lived to tell the tale.

Yes, I'd become entrenched, and needed to trust myself and others.  Yes, things went wrong, and yes, we found unexpected gems along the way.  Yes, I wanted to throw up many times from nerves or punch something in frustration.  Yes, we had a boatload of fun.

And, no, I will never do it again.

Not without a little bit of planning, anyway.

Running With Irony

Last week, I briefly mentioned a swap of clutchbacks in a thrift - theft, in fact, albeit what most people would consider "minor" (and I justified as) because both pair of "crap" earrings were $4 (so it wasn't as if I changed out an expensive thing for a cheaper thing).  I have a conscience (with feathers) that doesn't just tweak me on things like this but practically shoots an air horn in my ear:  hence, the penance of donating jewelry (one crime to "fix" another).  Thanks to this, however, I forgave myself for my very unusual slip of ethics.

But Mama Angel is the gift that keeps on giving, and hyperfocused, too!  Last week was about helping me toward an unreal streak of great deals (that coin, if you didn't look, is 1/10 oz of pure gold) but this week was about digging in the knife, just one more time.  It wasn't the yank toward getting my practically-Hoarders living room cleared out on Saturday (instead of yard sales), nor was it the reminder that I hadn't paid bills or balanced the checkbook in two weeks (all of which kept me from The Hunt); no, it was a little revelation at the original site of my heinous act.

I stopped back at that thrift Saturday (between errands) to check on my donated jewelry (mostly sold!) and to see if anything new had been set out.  Nothing caught my eye except, of course, the "crap" earrings I'd put back, those of the formerly guilty conscience, the pair I didn't buy.

 They looked less ... plastic this time, and shinier.  So I removed the craptastic backings I'd traded out and looked more closely at what I'd passed on.  And ... can you see it?  The streaks?  The color?  The plaque at the top of the left earring - the one that says "585"?  Yeah, it's like that.

So, to summarize: I hammered myself with guilt, paid for a shabby steel pair of earrings (which I gave away) and two gold clutchbacks (which I kept) ... then forked out more for the ivory and 14K pair I'd passed on (which now have the swapped-out clutchbacks) after donating gold and silver pieces.  Mama Angel, at her knifey best, went out of her way to show me the irony of it all ... and, of course, to get in that one, final word.

Fair enough.  They look fabulous on me, after all.

A Really Good Week ... Or Two

I started writing this on Tuesday, but I had to wait and see how the whole week played out.  Hint - today was the first day I didn't find a great piece.

It hasn't been all good since my last allowance - I've had some bug since I returned from Indy, and between the gut bombs and the headache, I've been pretty miserable, especially since I've worked the whole time, too.  Last week, of course, the amethyst and white gold necklace was the most gorgeous (and keeper) moment.

I'm telling you, look at everything - this was in the silver tray, and priced that way.  It wasn't the only thing (a gorgeous 10K ring at a different consignment store - good deal not great - and two pair 14K earrings at a thrift that were a steal) but it was the start of it all.

Speaking of silver.

The butterfly I found today, in a consignment store, for just a couple of dollars. The rest were all week - that fat bracelet, especially, was $5 at a yard sale (well over an ounce) and the single hoop earring above the star bracelet was one I found in a parking lot (I knew there was jewelry at that center that day, but I thought it would be in my normal haunt, not behind my left passenger tire).  The circle pendant is studded with diamonds (and so a faboo bargain).  FYI - not everything I've found is there.  I gave a gorgeous pin (with onyx) and some others away already, for penance, after I swapped a gold clutchback from one pair of crap earrings to another at a thrift store (so the crap pair I bought would have two good backs instead of just one).  Sterling, great costume, and a really nice gold ring and necklace went to my favorite charity shop, and I don't regret it for a moment.

The vacuum filled.  And nicely.

Gotta tell it from the start, or at least from Saturday.  I'd planned to drive the 80 miles to a flea market I haven't even been to all year - I usually hit craigslist and check "jewelry," just like everyone else, and I wanted a change from the usual "sorry, someone was here at the crack of dawn" and the picked-through baskets.  Morning came but I could almost hear Mama Angel telling me to stay local and just follow my nose, so I did.  And everywhere - everywhere - my nose blew me (shut up) I found something amazing.  A tangled chain and link bracelet and sterling bangle here, a pair of wedding bands there, that chunky silver bracelet along with a hideous 80's ring (with what I thought was a spurious mark) in one place, and 18K clutchbacks (on steel earrings!) in another.  It was so bizzarre and amazing I almost didn't explode on Sunday when I went to teach back-to-back classes with no a/c, no elevator (5th floor), painters and tilers blocking everything ... yeah, I honestly thought it was a gift so I would only frighten the building manager with cold, angry Bunny, not kill him with raging, "she'll rip yer throat out!" Bunny.

And though it saved at least two lives, the trend continued!  I kept letting the wind take me and ...

The coin pendant I thought was "clad" silver (just a couple of bucks) ... isn't silver.

Seriously, how could I think it was a dime?  Because it had a generic "guarantee" from a mint, and I'd seen a similar pendant in a different shop for about $20 more than I paid for this one.  I snapped it up because it was cool.  I kept it because it's 1/10 oz of pure gold, and wearable!


The earrings in the far back of the big picture, the blue stones that look like iolite, are in a pair that was marked "gold?" with a smushed mark I thought looked like part of 925 except the "5" was more an "L" ... until I turned it upside-down saw it could be a 7 ... and the curves of a 5 and 0.  Yep!  It was!  And sapphires and diamonds!

The other puppy was a gamble, too, even though the 14K is clear on both parts - the pendant is big, as you can see, but that chain is heavy and Cheetos orange (but not marked "Italy"), a darker shade than the pendant.  It wasn't within my comfort zone for speculation (I draw the line at $30 these days).  But I'd trusted the nosy, feathered one this far, I might as well go all the way.

When I got it home I decided to do electronic test instead of scratch, because the chain was big enough not to get severed by the pulse.  "755" and above is 14K on my machine.  It read "003."  I'd weighed the pendant already and it not only tested right, it's worth enough to my gamble if I choose to sell it (as long as gold stayed relatively high) so - oh, well, live and learn.

I started to put it in into my "to be donated" bag ... and then I remembered that some gold was coated.  I used my pink eraser on the links, and tried again.  814.  My eyes bugged out (it's one very heavy chain), so I tried another unerased part (3 again) and another erased part (805).  Then I started dancing.

Overall, although I spent about two and a half allowances (which I had, thanks to the bug), I now own some of the more beautiful pieces I've ever seen, and at a fraction of what they're worth.  Best deals were those heavy shell earrings and that coin pendant.  Favorites are the amethyst necklace and the sapphire earrings.  Best motivator to teach everyone about what's fake and what's gold is that chain.

Things that make me smile, however, aren't in any pictures:  the stuff that's already made it into my trash can or the gallon-sized "donation" Ziploc, the stuff that cost me about a third of what I spent overall.  It's all a treasure of a different kind because it will give twice - once when I pay the charity shops and yard sale people for the chance at a great piece, and again when I cull out the dreck and give back the nicer bits to sell again.  Plus, though it shows I'm not always right, I'm right more often than I'm wrong, and that's amazing to me.  And unlike those dry, bloodless stocks and bonds, this is something I can actually wear.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

Can you?