Finally Scored At My GW

[mkulltra]

Went to Goodwill this afternoon while running some errands. I headed straight to the back instead of stopping at jewelry counter first like I normally do. It was like my intuition was telling me where to go. Anyway, as I get to the home junk, I see and employee carrying off toward the back room two arms full of shining items from the carts they put new merchanise on. This immediately got my attention that something wasn't right. Again, something like intuition. Well, I hurried down an aisle and caught her just as she is about to pop into the back room. Before she could go through the doors, I asked her if I could see the items. She quickly says that she has to reprice these items. I said, well can I see them first. She hands me a sugar bowl and I look at the bottom and clearly see Gorham Sterling. I hand it back to her and say I would like to buy all of it. So she goes into the back room and now I'm nervous she is not going to come back out. After what felt like an eternity, she finally comes back out with the items and says she changed the price from one dollar to two and two to three. I breath a sigh of relief and thanked her. As I walked away, I looked at what I had. Three silver sugar and creamer bowls and two candlesticks.

Here is a picture of them:




The matching bowls are Gorham. The other sugar bowl is Durham which was (later?) owned by Gorham.

I took a quick look at the carts just in case something was missed and immediately headed straight to the registers, before someone could stop me and say the items aren't for sale. The cashier ringing me up says these are really nice and turns one of them over. She doesn't say another word after that and I could feel the tension between us as she knows that I know that she knows what I got. I finished the transaction and headed straight to my car to secure the items. I went back in shortly after and hang around for awhile waiting for the matching silverware set to come out. After about an hour, nothing else had come out and I decided to call it a day. I'm sure there was more good stuff that either didn't make it out to the floor or came out after I had left. Either way I ended up paying $12 for everything. The three bowls are over 11oz combined. This is the first time I have found a really decent score at GW in a couple years. Wishing silver was back at $40+ an ounce. Haven't decided if I am going to sell it or hold it until silver goes back up. I'll probably just hold it since I have so little into it.

They have also started doing jewelry jars at my local store. I bought one of those while I was hanging around. In a brief look through, I have already found some sterling in the jars. I'll update if I find anyting great. At least it tells me that things are being missed in these jars. Might go pick up a few more tomorrow.

Thanks for looking. HH!

 

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[leadnbrass]

Nice score!!!

PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF!!!

I go to my local Goodwill (2 of them) at least 4-5 times a week.

Just yesterday I went to one that I went to the day before...its been a long while since I got a good score. I saw the woman exit the backroom with a shopping cart full of things to put out and noticed an older box on the bottom that said Jumbo Sized Friction Car...I got yelled at years ago for not waiting until the item us placed on the shelf so I waited. The second it hit the shelf I picked it up...marked Bandai and go for $250-$300 in the box...score.

After I had that I walked to the counter to pay and the same woman comes and puts a Nintendo DS on the glass and tells the woman ringing me up to put it into the case next to the Ipod...picked up both of those as well. DS was marked $2.99 (works) the Ipod was a classic 80gd that was marked $4.99 (works) and the car was $5.99.

So basically I got $400 worth of stuff for $15 (I rounded up) haha.

Its easy to get discouraged when 99% of the time its junk but you can run into a score like you did.

Conrats!

 

[theekman]

Really good find! Silver like that is my favorite.

I would wait till silver goes up to sell, i mean your only out $12.

A few years back i kept all the sterling i found at estate sales, and thrift shops until i had enough to buy a 1oz gold coin, then i cashed it all in and got one.

 

[kingskid1611]

That is a fantastic score.

 

[mkulltra]

After going through the jewelry jar, I only pulled out a pair of sterling hoop earrings and a sterling thin necklace. Only paid ten dollars for the jar. Does give me hope that better items can be found in them though. Going to go back and pick up a few more jars. Even if I spend $40 on four or five jars, I can probably pull enough out to make my money back. I think finding some nice signed silver pieces or even unmarked or hard to find mark gold wouldn't me surpising if I keep at it.

Can anyone that buys jars at Goodwill give me some advice on picking and buying them? Anything in particular you look for before buying them? Yesterday, there were about eight jars priced between $8-$10 each. I only bought one to try. It seems like most are filled with total junk and kids jewelry.

 

[Drmad7]

I bought 5 jars/bags last week. I saw a 14k pendant and necklace in one. It turned out to be 5g. I saw a Jesus pendant marked Sterling on a nice chain in another bag. That bag also had s nine chain that looked vaguely familiar. That chain turned out to be a David Yurman Sterling/14K Blue Topaz Acorn pendant and chain. Sold it for $330.00 Best Offer on eBay. For me, I usually look at the jars and try to find something that makes the $$ spent worth it(these jars sell for between $25-$39). I also found several pieces of sterling jewelry and pieces. Forgot...got a 14k Bulova Ladies watch(1965). And a very nice, but fake, Cartier diamond watch. The reason I have to buy the jars is groups is because they are usually filled up at the same time and if I find a nice gold earring(or Silpada silver) in one bag/jar, the mate is usually in one of the other bags/jars! Scoring Sterling Silver from a local Goodwill last year is what got me on this road.

 

[OldSowBreath]

Wow - I live in the 4th largest city in America and our SA is selling jewelry jars anywhere from 19.99 to 39.99. I have hit it when everything was half-off and for 19.99, half of the big jar, I found one 10k earring, and a few 14k gold posts. Also, a scrimshaw tie clip which should fetch around $30.00. I like to dig through them on a rainy Saturday, when there are few garage sales. Our SA tends to lump necklaces in one jar, watches in another. At least with the watch jar, you can at least see a few enough names on dials to make a reasonable decision whether to purchase. I'm inclined more to the necklace jars and wonder what others think.

 

[mugsisme]

My rule is to try and find ONE good thing that will make the jar worthwhile. Every time I don't follow my rule, it comes back to bite me. And yeah, they are not so great about putting matching in earrings in the same jar. Very annoying. I find the 10 dollar jars here are total and complete junk. And the super expensive ones are junk. They think because a chain is gold tone it's gold. NOT. It's happened to me too many times that I spent a lot of money and had nothing to show from it.

 

[Drmad7]

The end is near! The person that does the jewelry jars for the local Goodwill stores told me that although they personally disagreed with the decision...by the end of the year all jewelry will no longer get shipped to the stores but placed on shopatGoodwill.com! So I have to enjoy these days while I can! And hit garage sales more!

 

[OldSowBreath]

It makes me think of that recent post where someone was complaining that GW was using shill bidders to drive up the price of the on-line bidding.

 

[mkulltra]

I was thinking are that many people actually buying jewelry on the GW website. I guess the way they look at it is if they sell one at retail online it pays for ten or twenty others that would end up being sold for cheap in store.

 

[Drmad7]

ALMOST scored some 18K David Yurman Diamond Earrings with Omega Backs at Goodwill auction today! They were mixed in with a silver jewelry lot and looked like costume jewelry. Last written bid was $200 and they start live bidding from that pic. My friend/enemy/main competition showed up 10 minutes before they got to the earrings. Well, it turned out that on the bids went to $300.00, it was just him and I. I figured his top dollar was $800 and I took him to $730.00 and told him that me stopping at $725.00 was my gift to him! He was not overly happy, but we both know those earrings retailed for over $6,000 and still for well over $1500.00! Maybe next time.

 

[mkulltra]

I posted these sterling pieces on Craigslist a couple weeks ago. Just got a call from a pushy young kid interested in buying them. Insists that I must run out right now and meet him at 9pm when my kids are going to bed. I told him that I couldn't meet him tonight and he starts giving me an attitude and questioning why I can't meet him tonight. I finally just told him nevermind that I would rather just keep them. I hope this was just an amateur and can't imagine any of the people on here acting this why with a seller. He would have gotten a pretty good deal too since I left plenty of meat on the bone. Maybe he thought I was an inexperienced seller? Has anyone else had a similar situation?

 

[mkulltra]

Text after phone conversation

 

[bigcaddy64]

The guy could be a run of the mill ass or desperate to make the deal because he knows there is money to me made. CL is all about who shows up first with the cash and those who are polite, or at least think of the sellers position, end up missing out.

I had this happen to me just a week ago. A friend spotted something on CL I had been looking for. It had a great price and a misspelled listing title which kept competitors from seeing it. I didn't get the message until 8:52pm so I emailed the seller after deciding that it might of been too late to call. We talked on the phone the following morning and I was told the item was sold a few minutes after 9pm, about 15 minutes after I emailed him!

 

[mkulltra]

Maybe you are right and he was just over excited but I would have made plans to meet with him tomorrow if he hadn't been so insistent that it was tonight. Plus the posting had been up for two weeks so there was no reason to think I was going to sell it to someone else by tomorrow.

The only reason I listed it was to put the money towards a cold air intake for my new Dodge Charger. I get it tomorrow and can't wait to put it in.

 

[GibH]

I made an offer of $750 to a guy who had an Excal listed for $1000. It was a year old and like new, he had the box, paper work, accessories and long handle scoop with it. He accepted the offer, but said he was out of town until Tuesday (this was a Saturday). Tuesday rolls around and he gets back to me, says we can meet Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday comes, he emails and says he sold it that day for his original asking price.

It's possible the buyer has lost deals like this as well. I was kind of po'd, but oh well, there are always deals to be had.

 

[mkulltra]

You guys made me feel bad after your stories so I ended up telling him that I would meet with him after work today. Got it sold and installed my air intake. I was happy and so was he.

 

[GibH]

You guys made me feel bad after your stories so I ended up telling him that I would meet with him after work today. Got it sold and installed my air intake. I was happy and so was he.

Oh heck, I would have felt the same you did. I might have gotten the Excal deal if I had been a bit more... ah, let's say assertive, but I don't like pushy people and I'm not about to treat someone differently than I want to be treated.

Glad it worked out for you though.

 

[diggummup]

You guys made me feel bad after your stories so I ended up telling him that I would meet with him after work today. Got it sold and installed my air intake. I was happy and so was he.

His name wasn't Sean was it? I won't ask which store but can I ask if you what county the GW was in? I haven't seen any jars of jewelry yet at any thrift stores I frequent.