I had previously published articles entitled Find “Almost” Free Gold At Thrift Shops & Yard Sales with follow up articles on silver and advanced gold finding. In all the years I have doing this and keeping my eye out for other sellable items, I have had some great finds. Hear are my six most profitable finds during the past 23 years and the one that got away.
1) I bought an apparently broken watch at a local thrift shop. It was a man’s heavy 18K Longines watch with matching 18K band. It was marked 750 and not 18K, which is why I believe I was able to buy it for $15. They didn’t even want to sell it because it was broken. I told them that it was fine with me so they sold it. 750 is the European marking for 18K so I knew I had made a great find. In addition the watch was not broken but self winding and just needed to be jiggled a little to get it running. At the time gold was only $375 an ounce so I got a high bid for it of $675 on Ebay. Not bad at all. Today with gold at $635 an ounce, I would have gotten about twice as much.
2) My second big single find was a half carat+ brilliant diamond in a 14K leaf shaped broach. It was obvious that based on the high quality of the diamond, it had once been in an engagement ring which had been reset into a pin at one time. This cost me all of $1 at a flea market which has since become defunct. This was also a find from many years ago and the $600 I got on Ebay, would today have been closer to $1,000.
3) Although not one of my best finds, this was one of my most satisfying. My wife first husband left his childhood cap gun with her. It was only a single gun in a two gun holster which was stapled together at a rip. I put this on Ebay figuring I would be lucky to get $3.00 to $5.00. It went for $175 plus shipping. My wife had a nice laugh at that one.
4) My best find financially was something I almost didn’t buy. It was an ugly gold necklace which said 22K on the clasp and was full of gemstones. All the gemstones were glass and plastic. I thought it couldn’t be real given this circumstance. It was also gaudy and poorly made. However, it was selling for $15 and after looking at it 3 times and going to other vendors, I finally bought it. It turned out to be real and after I got rid of the glass and plastic gems there was about 3 ounces of scrap 22K gold left. I sold it as scrap on Ebay and it hammered down at $1,200, slightly below gold melt at the time.
5) Another financially rewarding find was also a 22K item found at a flea market. A thick and poorly made man’s bracelet weighing about 2 ounces. A friend has since told me that during the Viet Nam War many people melted their gold into crude chains which they could cut off a link or two pay for escape or money in the New World. These were never made for beauty. In effect the less valuable it looked the less likely someone would steel it thinking it was fake gold. This was my second biggest profit selling on Ebay for a little over $750.
6) One really nice find was headed for the dumpster when I spotted it. It appeared to be a brass bowl at a local yard sale. I recognized it as Arts Deco and asked if I could buy it. The yard sale seller said he was going to throw it away. I offered to buy it from him but he just handed it to me saying it was junk. When I took it home I tried to polish it up and get some of the dirt off. The brassy color disappeared as I polished it. The bowl was sterling silver. It was also made by Tiffany’s in the 1940s. That nice bowl sold for $450 when silver was $3.50 an ounce. Today silver is $12.50 an ounce. However, the collector value was more than the silver value. I have seen similar bowls on Ebay for $500 to $600.
7) The last item is the one that got away. I was at a local flea market and a dealer I knew offered me a 14K gold Tiffany dresser set (i.e. hair brush, mirror, three solid 14K gold jars, another brush and a comb) for melt weight. This would have cost me $2,500 but included the weight of the glass in the mirror, the non-gold part of the comb, and the same for both brushes, so I declined. Another person did buy it. He found that the initials on the items were from a famous old money family. It was a set which belonged to their Daughter. The buyer drove up to New York City and sold it to a reseller of fine Tiffany pieces for $35,000. That was the one that got away and I will remember my foolishness for not buying it till the day I die, which hopefully will be a long time from now.
