Best Yard Sale, Flea Market, Thrift Shop Finds I Sold on Ebay

And the Big One that Got Away

I had previously published articles entitled Find "Almost" Free Gold At Thrift Shops & Yard Sales with follow up articles on silver and advanced gold finding. In all the years I have doing this and keeping my eye out for other sellable items, I have had some great finds. Hear are my six most profitable finds during the past 23 years and the one that got away.

1) I bought an apparently broken watch at a local thrift shop. It was a man's heavy 18K Longines watch with matching 18K band. It was marked 750 and not 18K, which is why I believe I was able to buy it for $15. They didn't even want to sell it because it was broken. I told them that it was fine with me so they sold it. 750 is the European marking for 18K so I knew I had made a great find. In addition the watch was not broken but self winding and just needed to be jiggled a little to get it running. At the time gold was only $375 an ounce so I got a high bid for it of $675 on Ebay. Not bad at all. Today with gold at $635 an ounce, I would have gotten about twice as much.

2) My second big single find was a half carat+ brilliant diamond in a 14K leaf shaped broach. It was obvious that based on the high quality of the diamond, it had once been in an engagement ring which had been reset into a pin at one time. This cost me all of $1 at a flea market which has since become defunct. This was also a find from many years ago and the $600 I got on Ebay, would today have been closer to $1,000.

3) Although not one of my best finds, this was one of my most satisfying. My wife first husband left his childhood cap gun with her. It was only a single gun in a two gun holster which was stapled together at a rip. I put this on Ebay figuring I would be lucky to get $3.00 to $5.00. It went for $175 plus shipping. My wife had a nice laugh at that one.