This weekend there were lots of yard sales advertised and I wanted to see if I could get some more jewelry while out looking for chips. I get emailed by a company that gets all of the yard sales and estate sales advertised within 10 miles of my home on Craigs list. Very convenient if you do not want to have to look thru 500 ads each weekend. This week the huge (3500 house) new subdivision in my area was having its community sales. That means hundreds of sales all in one area. One person advertised silver coins and another had a "coin operated poker machine". I have been looking for a cheap video poker machine so I figured I would have a look. That sale was yesterday so after getting done with the stock market I left. On the way I realized that the coin seller was on the way even though his sale didn't start until today. I stopped at his place and he was nice enough to show me what he had which was considerable. Unfortunately most of his prices were 4 times what I wanted to pay except for some quarters and half dollars. He had the halves at $7 each and the quarters at $4 each(go figure!). So I got him down a few bucks on the total and ended up paying 12 times face for the $7.50 I wanted which isn't too bad even if silver did drop to $26 yesterday. I went to see the video poker machine at another community sale but it was one of the new electronic pachilso machines instead. Oh well. The lady said she knew someone who may have an older slot machine for sale so I left my card. As I was driving back the lady with the slot machine called and said that one of her friends just got back and had some of her mothers costume jewelry at home and would bring it on Saturday.

This morning I crawl out of bed at 5:30 and am at the local community sale by 6:20 (it started at 7:00). I did buy a few things - worlds largest roll of duct tape, a 4" binder for my chips, some books for the upcoming cruise and some beads for Cindy. I asked all over for jewelry and old coins today and pretty much struck out. One lady said she had some nice jewelry and brought it out. She had 3 rings and a broach & earings that were OK. Only problem is that she wanted $200 for each of the rings. I offered $75 each but she said a jeweler offered her $600 for all of it. I told her to run back there as fast as she could and take the money since that was probably on the high side of retail. A few house down a lady told me that she had a large coin collection but didn't know if she wanted to sell it. She said it was probably worth "thousands" and I told her I had a thousand in my pocket if she wanted to show it to me. She got her husband and they are going to think about it so no sale but a good lead and they have my card to put with the coins for whenever they do want to sell. So I got no jewelry at the large community sale and drove back to the sale from yesterday. On the way I bought a laser operated thermometer - a home version of the type used to tell if you have leaks around your house. But for $3 how could I turn it down? At the sale from yesterday the lady digs out a large box of costume jewelry as advertised. It has earings, watches bracelets - the usual junk. I did find 1 1/2 pair of sterling earings and a small ring. Plus the bracelet in the scan. I looked it over and while it was nice the large stone in the middle looked like plastic. Still not sure what it is but I finally looked on the clasp and very faintly I saw 0k. Real close look shows it could be 10K. DING! DING! DING! So how much for the bracelet an other things? $2, SOLD! The bracelet did test OK for 10K but not for 14K so it is real. Further confirmation is that the tiny stone in the middle is a real diamond. The whole thing weights 12 grams so there is between $200 and $240 in gold in it after taking out the weight of the stones.

A few weeks ago I went to the "rich" part of Nashville and was very surprised at the amount of jewelry I was able to buy. Could be just coincidence but I think I am going to concentrate on that area this year. It seems like all of the dealers and jewelry hunters go to the large, well advertised community sales and ignore the unadvertised single house sales which is where I seem to have the best luck.

And that is why I go to yard sales. Oh yeah - one guy saw my "I BUY CASINO CHIPS" sweatshirt and sold me a $1 Hard Rock Tulsa chip for face value. Not the best condition but I did need it for the collection. The fun is in the hunt.