jewelry marked 14K - 18K - 925 bought a lot this saturday

[cyberdan]

I hit a bunch of yardsales this last Saturday and my first two stops were my best scores of the day or so I thought

First stop, a tangled mess of chains and bracelets. I didn't even want to try and untangle them but I did manage to see a chain with a 14K tag so I made a $5 offer and the girl was thrilled to get rid of them.

Next stop was a few miles down the road. The lady had a card table literally filled with older jewelry. Each was in a little ziplock baggy. I spent over 30 min there trying to go through everything. Kind of hard, most of the time I was by myself and I could make sure I peeked at each. But when another customer came they would mess up my "looked at / not looked at" piles. I also had to guard the mounting pile of what I wanted to buy. Fineally the lady gave me a plastic grocery bag to put things in. I started finding lots of little things marked 925 and then heavy rings marked 14K and then a heavy mans chain marked 18K and lots of other things. Even put a baggy of faceted stones in my lot. I finished and the lady only asked $10 so I paid and left.

I was feeling pretty good, I knew there was almost 2 oz of marked gold but I kept telling myself wait till I got home and tested it because some of it just didn't look right. I will buy anything marked if I can get it cheap enough. (if I am in a spot where I can't test it)

Well several hours later I did get home and test it. All the marked items were FAKE and/or COUNTERFIT. I paid $15.00 for all and I did test everything I bought and I did OK. There was three pieces of gold and an ounce of silver and about 20gr of gold filled. So the PM value was $88.50. I would rather it been $2000 but some times you win and sometimes you squeak by.

 

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[Nashoba]

sometimes ya win....sometimes ya lose..actually you came out ahead so it wasn't a loss, but I wish you had gotten your two ounces of AU.

~Nash~

 

[cheese]

This is one of those instances to refer others to when they say we are taking advantage of people by buying their items at such low prices. What if you had told the lady, "No, I can't take these for $10... this is at least 2 grand worth.... here's $1200 for all of it."

Maybe they knew it was fake, and by some chance they wouldn't have taken your offer, but then again, they saw you looking for marked pieces and still took your money knowing that's what you were after, so if they'll take you for $10, don't think they won't for $1200.

 

[cyberdan]

This is one of those instances to refer others to when they say we are taking advantage of people by buying their items at such low prices.

She set the price and I paid.

"No, I can't take these for $10... this is at least 2 grand worth.... here's $1200 for all of it."

Only if I was an american picker and had a camera on me. 8)

Maybe they knew it was fake,

She did make a comment about the 18K chain not looking right. I agreed with her and put the chain in my bag.