Yard Sale Season...How to Get the Good Stuff!
Collectors Corner: Yard Sale Tool Kit
By Michele Alice
EcommerceBytes.com
May 04, 2014
Now that winter has given its last gasp (we hope), it's time to move on to yard-sale season. People are suddenly in the mood to chuck out the old, give the old homestead a good scrubbing, and await the new. And yard sales are beginning to appear everywhere as a way to avoid having to haul everything to a dump or thrift store, or as a way to make a little extra cash.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure", so the saying goes, and yard sales present the perfect opportunity to acquire valuable and interesting items. One never knows when one might come across a sought-after addition to a personal collection or recognize the potential re-sale value of an item whose next stop could be the city landfill. Of course, it's nice to be able to recognize value at first glance, but we oftentimes need a little help, which is why we have come up with the following recommendations for a basic, easy-to-carry Yard Sale Tool Kit:
1) Magnifying glass and/or jeweler's loupe. A good jeweler's loupe will allow you to examine gemstones like diamonds (even the best diamonds will have flaws, while imitation stones will lack such natural imperfections) and to see even the smallest jewelry makers' marks. And though a collectible piece may not have any marks, or a piece that bears such marks may not be worth collecting, they do in general indicate quality. A loupe can also be used to check hallmarks on metal objects, to scrutinize the surface of a print to determine how it was made (silkscreened, photolithographed, etc.), or to just examine the surface of an object to check for flaws.
2) Small magnet. Not sure if an object is solid brass? Brass is not magnetic, so if the magnet sticks, it's brass plate. A magnet is also not attracted to metals like gold, silver, bronze, copper, or aluminum. It is, however, attracted to iron and iron alloys, like steel, so this is also a good test for gold and silver coins where a magnetic attraction would indicate that the coin is a plated fake.
3) Smart phone. Want to do some quick research on an object's markings or value? With this handy little device you don't have to worry about finding a Wi-Fi hotspot out on the road. Wherever you've got cellphone service, you've got a connection to the World Wide Web.
4) Portable UV light. This is great for highlighting repairs to ceramic objects. It's also handy for identifying some (not all) diamonds that fluoresce blue.
5) Your breath. This comes in handy when trying to determine whether or not a gemstone might be a diamond. (We could have suggested a small piece of glass - "diamond cuts glass" - but since the organizer of the yard sale might not look kindly on someone scratching a piece of family jewelry across glass or anything else, and since there are many, many things that will scratch glass, we don't.) Diamonds are extremely efficient conductors of heat, so when you breathe on a stone (like trying to fog up a mirror) it should clear immediately and stay clear no matter how many times in quick succession that you breathe on it. Fake stones will cloud over and even exhibit some slight accumulated condensation.
Lastly, but not least is # 6, your eyes. Does that stone have a rainbow sparkle? Then it's not a diamond that reflects is shades of gray. Want to find out the color of a piece of Carnival glass? Hold it up to the sun or other bright light source. It's the color of the glass, not the iridescence that determines the color of the piece.
OK, now that you're supplied with the essentials, get out there and,
Happy Hunting!
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Originally Posted by shabbird
