Sterling, Sterling, Sterling and Some Other Stuff

[J-dude]

This weekend was the best one so far in regards to garage sale treasure hunting. We woke up at 6am to get to a private (non company) estate sale that had listed that they had some sterling in the ad.....sale started at 8, we arrived at 7am and to my surprise we were the first in line...yay God! So, after standing in the rain for an hour the garage doors opened and we got the sterling silverware set...woot woot!!! We asked the price and they told us $250....upon further observation we noticed that not all of it was sterling but there was a good amount so we made the purchase....after weighing it we have about 1350g which is about $1192 spot value. We are going to keep them for now and see what silver prices do.

Next sale we went to we picked up some Tim Guerro Sterling earrings for .50. The value in these is in the name NOT in the silver weight...should get about $20-30 for them. We also picked up another set of sterling earrings at that sale for .50 but I'm not sure what they will sell for...they are marked "Thailand" and have some blue stones in them.

Went to anther sale and scored some Ming's Sterling earrings (again NOT for melt) Ming's sells for good price on eBay due to the name.

Next sale....guess what....yep...more sterling earrings. This time we paid $1 for a pair of what appear to be Taxco Sterling Parrot earrings (NOT SCRAPPING)....the back it pretty well worn so its hard to make out the words. Thank you hombre_de_plata_flaco for your post on the Taxco as I had never heard of it till I read your post. This sale was being put on by some friends of a lady who was in hospice care to raise money to help her and her family out. They also had a raffle which was $1 per ticket and the winners get 1 of 5 Olive Garden Gift Baskets with cups/saucers/salad dressing/cheese grader a few other things as well as a $25 gift card. Well, we wanted to help out so we bought $44 with the tickets....we got the call tonight and we won 2 of the baskets....guess the fiance' and I will be eating good tomorrow night!!

A few other things we picked up were two pair of new without box shoes from Nordstrom....we paid $5 for the boots and .50 for the shoes.....the boots (Marc Jacobs) will sell for $100-200 on eBay and the fancy glitter woman's Converse are selling for $60-80 on eBay. I also picked up a nice Klipsch Computer Speaker Set for $5 (they lady wanted $2 but I offered $5) that will go for about $40-50.

I have to give a special thanks to all of you who contribute to this forum that I learn from and also a BIG thanks the Apple iPhone 4 (can't wait to get the 5) and the eBay app who together have assisted in making me some money, but also saved me from making some terrible purchases (although, sometimes I still do)

[SEANO]

Nice post J-Dude. Great pictures and congrats on the great finds. I am also waiting on the Iphone 5, currently using the 3GS.

[bazinga]

Geez that's a lot of nice silver!

It still blows my mind that people aren't aware of how valuable stuff is. Especially items that are clearly marked in this computer age. This is why you don't hire a company to do your estate sale and you take it to auction. At auction, it brings 90% of melt in many cases, and sometimes more of it is desirable. I tried to pay OVER melt for some sterling at an auction recently. Melt was about $600 and I was going up to $800 and it shot right past that.

I guess I don't see the point in these estate sale companies. Auctions are done THAT day with nothing left over.

[Goldmanford]

Sterling, low prices and yard sales are words that make me melt. Great job!