- Joined
- Dec 12, 2016
- Messages
- 960
So DH and I decide to head out and hit the next town to get some fresh air and sunshine amidst the covid blah blah blah. We map out our route and KNEW we were going to hit pawn shops all the way back home one by one. Some we passed on [too shady] but most we stopped. Disclaimer-I was born with a horseshoe up my bum [favorite family saying] but we have had ZERO luck at pawn shops in the past year.
Shop 1-garbage, nothing.
Shop 2-what do I see among the rubble? 2 cases filled with dark patina gold CRAP.. loaded with trays of 1970's throw aways. I spent 20 minutes starring through this glass looking for a treasure. And what do I see? A diamond and ruby band. Knowing what ebay would cost to pick one up this size, it was worth a look see. The man had no idea what he was talking about. I asked several questions [I had no idea it was Junior eyeing me up from the corner of the store that was in charge]. My salesman said to me "oh these are real" right after I asked "do you test for real gemstones?" and he said NO..
But they do test gold and they do test diamonds [I have a diamond tester at home I wasn't worried]. Then he walks away and says let me see what I can see on these. Two minutes later he yells through the store "how much do you want me to work on this?" I said I was interested, and he says "where are you comfortable?" It is a 14k band and was marked $350. Junior comes up from the corner, looks at the screen and says "I can do $275 on this best and final". DONE! Here is our first score of the day: [picture 1 has the 2 new bands from today-the 2nd story is below-pic 2 contains bands from Maven lane in the middle-with the outer bands from todays pawn shop finds]
Pawn shop #3 [we hit the MOTHER LOAD!!!]
So we walked in, and again this shop was much larger, much cleaner, but still only had 2 cases of goodies to look through. It was much less cluttered and I instantly found some pieces to look at. The first was this gorgeous diamond half eternity. It was marked $199!!! And has a hallmark that I have to look up. 14k and dirty as all get out. They don't clean anything!! So they really have no idea what they have. The super nice lady says "are you interested? it's $199". I said..that depends.. if it's negotiable I'm interested. She says "$100 and it's yours" .. SOLD!!! but this.. does not compare..to what I saw next.. Are you ready for this? I sure as HELL wasn't.
We looked around more at some really NEAT antiques and a lot of old machinery and tinker tools from the 50's. We circled back to the case and DH says "I know you're eyeing those earrings". I didn't even SEE the earrings. There were 2 pair of diamond studs in the case. Out front the first pair of studs were dark and had specs.. nothing spectacular even for a deal. But hidden in back of them was another pair. And they were in the dark, shadowed by a box up front. I asked her to pull them out and they were glitter bombs. I was scared ya'll LOL.. dead set scared. The alarms went off... no way are these real.. Then I checked out the box.. THEY WERE COSTCO STUDS!!! Did you ever just .. find something in a store and start looking around as if you're being watched..and don't dare put it down because you know if you do it will be snatched up like the last 80% sweater at macys??!!?? LOL.. so I started with the questions.. I knew she would give me a deal..but wanted to know more. SHE SAID they were "1.17 cttw". And I was like..wait .. she must be wrong.. I have 1.2 cttw at home..these were bigger. She got the manager.. he gave me the low down. Now you KNOW I looked these up and down. And then got the DH involved.. We thought they were probably SI1s but I made the mistake in front of them and said SI2's. He went to his pc and was talking with the girl "ok well let's do I1 pricing and they are an H in color". Then he looked at me and said "GIA would grade these an I1 so that's the pricing I'll give you"..... Ya'll...he had no idea who he was talking to. These were NO WAY I1's. I felt like I was I was in the twilight zone. So he gives me the price breakdown. One for cash, one for credit. The banks were closed, so we had to go the debit card route [cash is always better because they don't have to pay the banks a processing fee].
We get these studs home.. I took out every tool I owned. The caliper, the scale..the testers..everything. Everything is real. I then got my 1.2cttw earrings out to compare. THESE ARE NOT 1.17 CTTW..THESE MEASURED 1.68 CTTW!!!!!! My 1.2 were 4.88mm in size, these were 6mm each, which comes out to 1.68cttw [.84mm each]. In the 3rd photo below you can see the smaller ones I already owned and see it's smaller.
Shop 1-garbage, nothing.
Shop 2-what do I see among the rubble? 2 cases filled with dark patina gold CRAP.. loaded with trays of 1970's throw aways. I spent 20 minutes starring through this glass looking for a treasure. And what do I see? A diamond and ruby band. Knowing what ebay would cost to pick one up this size, it was worth a look see. The man had no idea what he was talking about. I asked several questions [I had no idea it was Junior eyeing me up from the corner of the store that was in charge]. My salesman said to me "oh these are real" right after I asked "do you test for real gemstones?" and he said NO..
But they do test gold and they do test diamonds [I have a diamond tester at home I wasn't worried]. Then he walks away and says let me see what I can see on these. Two minutes later he yells through the store "how much do you want me to work on this?" I said I was interested, and he says "where are you comfortable?" It is a 14k band and was marked $350. Junior comes up from the corner, looks at the screen and says "I can do $275 on this best and final". DONE! Here is our first score of the day: [picture 1 has the 2 new bands from today-the 2nd story is below-pic 2 contains bands from Maven lane in the middle-with the outer bands from todays pawn shop finds]Pawn shop #3 [we hit the MOTHER LOAD!!!]
So we walked in, and again this shop was much larger, much cleaner, but still only had 2 cases of goodies to look through. It was much less cluttered and I instantly found some pieces to look at. The first was this gorgeous diamond half eternity. It was marked $199!!! And has a hallmark that I have to look up. 14k and dirty as all get out. They don't clean anything!! So they really have no idea what they have. The super nice lady says "are you interested? it's $199". I said..that depends.. if it's negotiable I'm interested. She says "$100 and it's yours" .. SOLD!!! but this.. does not compare..to what I saw next.. Are you ready for this? I sure as HELL wasn't.
We looked around more at some really NEAT antiques and a lot of old machinery and tinker tools from the 50's. We circled back to the case and DH says "I know you're eyeing those earrings". I didn't even SEE the earrings. There were 2 pair of diamond studs in the case. Out front the first pair of studs were dark and had specs.. nothing spectacular even for a deal. But hidden in back of them was another pair. And they were in the dark, shadowed by a box up front. I asked her to pull them out and they were glitter bombs. I was scared ya'll LOL.. dead set scared. The alarms went off... no way are these real.. Then I checked out the box.. THEY WERE COSTCO STUDS!!! Did you ever just .. find something in a store and start looking around as if you're being watched..and don't dare put it down because you know if you do it will be snatched up like the last 80% sweater at macys??!!?? LOL.. so I started with the questions.. I knew she would give me a deal..but wanted to know more. SHE SAID they were "1.17 cttw". And I was like..wait .. she must be wrong.. I have 1.2 cttw at home..these were bigger. She got the manager.. he gave me the low down. Now you KNOW I looked these up and down. And then got the DH involved.. We thought they were probably SI1s but I made the mistake in front of them and said SI2's. He went to his pc and was talking with the girl "ok well let's do I1 pricing and they are an H in color". Then he looked at me and said "GIA would grade these an I1 so that's the pricing I'll give you"..... Ya'll...he had no idea who he was talking to. These were NO WAY I1's. I felt like I was I was in the twilight zone. So he gives me the price breakdown. One for cash, one for credit. The banks were closed, so we had to go the debit card route [cash is always better because they don't have to pay the banks a processing fee].
We get these studs home.. I took out every tool I owned. The caliper, the scale..the testers..everything. Everything is real. I then got my 1.2cttw earrings out to compare. THESE ARE NOT 1.17 CTTW..THESE MEASURED 1.68 CTTW!!!!!! My 1.2 were 4.88mm in size, these were 6mm each, which comes out to 1.68cttw [.84mm each]. In the 3rd photo below you can see the smaller ones I already owned and see it's smaller.
You did amazing, holy sh@t balls good.
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