For the last few weeks for some reason there have been very few decent yard sales. So this week I decided that even with my bad back I would try an auction. There was an ad for a house auction that had some personal items and lots of jewelry and coins listed. Most of the time the coins go for too much money but I thought that maybe if there were not a lot of people there I could get a deal on some jewelry. Well I got there almost 30 minutes before the auction started and was bidder #120. Not a good sign! They had over 90 lots of jewelry plus bags of costume jewelry. They also had 30 lots of coins. They didn't start the jewelry until after 12:00 so I had to wait two hours before bidding on anything. All of the coins went for ridiculous prices - like 40 times face value for 1964 Kennedy halves. They are worth about 13 times face. I was a little worried about the jewelry since they had a local jeweler appraise each piece. Of course his prices were at least twice what they were actually worth (at least as far as gold value). When the bidding started I kind of decided to keep to my usual scheme - only buy something if I think it is worth twice what I am paying. I had my gram scale with me so I weighed several of the lots to see how much they were worth and that is how I determined that the jeweler was overpricing everything by 100%. There were about 5 serious jewelry bidders and I managed to get 6 lots plus one of the "costume" jewelry lots. There was another costume jewelry lot that had a 14 KT bracelet in it and I figured it, along with some sterling pieces in it were worth about $100 but I quit bidding at $60. The chick bidding against me must have noticed the gold also! The last two bags were from the costume jewelry lot. All together I spent some real money today - $395. But I got exactly one ounce of 14KT gold and just over one half ounce of 10 KT gold worth $1029 calculated at Fridays ridiculously low gold price of $1269 per ounce. Not a bad haul! I should do this for a living! Oh wait - I am already retired!!! The fun is in the hunt.