Help! Im a Newbie!

[Piledriver]

Help! I'm a Newbie!

These are a few finds from last Friday's Garage sales and GW.
Believe me, I would love to hear ANYTHING you have to say about them.

I am currently studying the whole Garage Sale Forum; all 102 pages of it.
I am about 1/3 of the way through it.

So here it is; I am especially interested in the two Swiss Made watches.
The Abra 6 jewel doesn't QUITE run...it tries, but is probably dirty.

The Princess Charming is something I can't locate...only the Disney stuff, and this one is different.
Who makes it? I haven't had the back off yet.

 

[Mackaydon]

Re: Your Princess Charming: 1967 Princess Charming Wrist Watch by Bradley in Box - Vintage Character Watches
Note that Bradley made the watch.
Don......

 

[Piledriver]

Thanks Macaydon;
The ring is marked "91 Ster".
The "ruby" earrings are marked sterling, but seem to be composite (glass) because there are bubbles.
The Diel case goes with the Abra.

 

[kali_is_my_copilot]

Sorry to derail this thread but: kudos on taking on the forum in its entirety, that's what I did and it definitely served me well. If you don't already have one, a set of testing acids will be a worthwhile investment going forward unless you can spring for an electronic tester. Handle as much jewelry of all types as you can, treasure hunting becomes quite a bit more efficient when you can immediately recognize the real thing by look or feel!

One last suggestion, for whatever reason I have almost no luck with garage sales (it seems to be a city-wide issue). My scores are pretty equally divided between estate sales, the flea market, and shrewd online purchases; it's good to expand your horizons and figure out what the local dealer/reseller economy is like and where to focus your attention. Thrift stores and antique stores are good for the occasional pm score but full of other low-hanging antique/collectible fruit like glassware, art, electronics, vintage & high end clothing and accessories, etc. Re: GW, I hit ~5 GW stores weekly-monthly because of the occasional killer find, used to visit my closest stores almost daily but have found that time better spent going to less corporate thrift stores.

 

[Piledriver]

An Acid test kit is one of my next goals.
The GW yielded up a Tamron teleconverter 2x lens and a TI-5660.

Looking forward to more good buys.

 

[kali_is_my_copilot]

Nice picks! I really like the calculator, I'm pretty sure my parents had one in their office and it's probably still kicking around the house somewhere just waiting to be rescued.

When I got started a year ago I just ordered the cheapest test kit I could find on eBay, but some of the solutions were weak, due to age or over-dilution. All of my local coin stores stock similar acids but they work right every time (guessing because they're fresher), just get a stone and one bottle each 10k, 14k, 18k, 22k test acids. Use the 18k acid to test your silver (milky blue=good) and 14k for gold/not gold (green or yellow flash=not gold) and that's 99.99% of your assaying needs covered.

 

[Piledriver]

Many thanks!
I hope to be up to speed soon.

 

[randazzo1]

Those Earrings look like vintage dragons breath and will sell at a substantial premium. Very cool.

 

[randazzo1]

Those Earrings look like vintage dragons breath and will sell at a substantial premium. Very cool.

Closer look - now I'd say definitely dragons breath.

 

[Piledriver]

You guys are great!
Knowledge makes all the difference.