Silver out the wazoo

Here’s the jewelry finds from back when I mentioned having “one particularly good run each of the last two weeks” (December 5th post). This is all the silver, plus the charm chain which is marked 925 but appears to be not, a Coach watch, and the necklace/pendant on the right which is 14k white gold. My favorites from this batch are the charms, which are pretty hefty and feature marcasite stones, as well as the matching bracelets in the back. Those are marked as T&C – not Tiffany and Co, but Town and Country. They’re very pretty regardless and seem to sell for around 150$ each on eBay.

This spot was notable for one other thing, which maybe I’ll mention in my next post.

I’m not super happy with this photo, but it’s the only one I have of the jewelry I found the week before that (or after, I forget). Again, this is all the silver separated from the costume stuff, with the only gold being that bracelet on the left. It’s 10k and quite small, it was probably made for a kid. I went back to this spot this week and found another 20 grams or so of silver, this time in the form of a chunky pendant. The house is sold, so if I’m lucky I might get some more treasures in the coming weeks or months.

I saved this batch more recently, a couple weeks ago in NDG. A few nice Italian pieces here, and another recently sold house that I’ll be keeping my eye on.

And then last week, some former teenager put their old junk on the curb, including some jewelry bits. A lot of it was the usual crap that kids end up with, but I managed to fish out close to 27 grams of silver.

A few years ago this would have been worth 20-some dollars. At current prices, it’s worth closer to 100$. Even if the rapidly increasing gold prices make people a little more careful about throwing it away, I expect people will continue to be careless about their silver. And sometimes, I’ll be there to find it.

Otherwise, I’m thinking about my old stash of silver. I’ve been stashing some of my silver finds for years, the stuff that seems nicer than scrap but not special enough to stand out on eBay or get a friend to list on Marketplace. I was thinking I might try to sell these pieces at some kind of relatively fancy market, but I don’t think I’ll ever actually get around to doing that. I’m getting older and I realize I don’t like selling all that much. I like yard sales because I’m not that worried about any of the prices, and eBay because I don’t have to do much in the way of customer service. But the whole thing where you organize all your junk, bring it somewhere, display it nicely and then have to ask a price that justifies all that effort (which will disappoint most people) … it’s not for me.

Anyways, my plan is to divest myself of this silver. I have about a pound of it, maybe a bit more. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, but over the last year I’ve been trying to get rid of as much stale crap as possible. I was thinking of doing an eBay listing, but I could also just say to hell with it and bring it to the scrap man. If you have any ideas, let me know in the comments. I’m not sure if people will pay much of a premium for this kind of stuff at the current metal price.

One last thing. I found this photo in a collection of damp, sometimes moldy photos that had clearly spent too long in a basement. This one wasn’t too bad though, a little smelly but that seems to have dissipated, and appears to be signed by Jean Beliveau. I doubt it’s super valuable, but I figure if one of those kids ended up being in the NHL, it could increase the value. I’m guessing I have some followers who know a lot more about hockey history than I do, so let me know if you have any ideas. For some reason I think the team might be from Dorval, but I don’t know if that’s based on some actual info I saw while sorting through the pictures, or something I just guessed. Anyways, I would be happy to figure this out, as it’s been bothering me for a while and I’d like to pass on this photo to someone who loves it.