Hazy hot and humid Eye Candy Wednesday

[evelyb30]

Thank you God for central air.  Anyone got some cool eye candy?  Keep the pictures smaller to speed loading, and as always nothing from a live auction.  

The first one is something I found less than a week ago.  I bought it for pretty and only after seeing the photographs did I see the signature. Baccarat.  It'll be on Ebay sooner or later.   The other two are long gone.  The first is a gold-plate and jade-wannabe set.  The second is a base metal and amber chip bracelet with some other stone bits mixed in.  

BaccaratStone and gold-filledAmber

[flipping_treasures]

Love the Baccarat, lucky you.

Here are a few of the ones I picked up on my trip.

CoroNew England Glass WorksSterling, Germany Signed ER

[dream*peddler]

Ev, what a great surprise on the Baccarat necklace!  That's a beauty!  Sandy, was your trip to jewelry heaven?  Love the pieces you picked up, especially the Katz shoe!

Here are some recent NA and SW acquistions. 

Brooch/pendant stamped with La Rose Ganadonegro siggy:

Top one signed "Gibb."  Bottom unsigned:

Mixed stone bracelet:

[thornsandroses]

It's one heck of a hot 4th here.  Hubs was going to grill something, until he walked outside and realized he'd cook to a crisp before anything else did.  We settled for ice cream in the comfort of our AC.

I've had a VERY busy week, as I'm in a new job that takes a lot of my energy.  But I get off at 3:30 PM, and there's a slew of nice thrift shops on the way home!

Here's a sampling of this week's acquisitions:

Dragons breath in sterling silver screwback earrings.6.0 CTW amethyst in sterling silver.2.5 CTW spring green emeralds in sterling silver.

[thornsandroses]

I'm also thinking that Baccarat was a very nice score!

A few more things I got:

1.25 CTW aquamarines in sterling silver. Ring taken by my sister, that leech. 😄15 CTW amethyst and sterling silver tennis bracelet.Whiting & Davis Flowering Onion Pomegranate Bracelet

[*smedley*]

this is the only pic handy... an Australian opal i purchased at a coin shop in Cairns in 2002... i paid either AUD50 or AUD100, and i simply can't remember which... i contacted the dealer thru ebay a few years ago to find out if he knew which mine it came from, but he didn't... he also didn't remember how much i paid, but he *did* remember me!

[flipping_treasures]

Very nice items.  

No the trip back to Iowa was for the Carroll Family Reunion.  It was a hard trip, going back without Chuck going down the roads and passing the places we had camped and visited for the last 30 years.  Thank goodness my son was with me.  We stopped at a few places, but no many. 

[dream*peddler]

That must have been a bittersweet trip, Sandy.  I'm glad your son went with you to help you get through this first trip without Chuck.  It sounds like you have a large, loving family to help you through these difficult times.  All of us board sisters and brothers are here for you, too .

Thornsandroses, congrats on the new job.  It will be no time before the thrift store employees know you by name .  Very nice finds and your pictures look great!

*smedley,* that opal is really lit up!  What a beauty!  Where is it now?

[*smedley*]

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@dream*peddler wrote:

*smedley,* that opal is really lit up!  What a beauty!  Where is it now?

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just sitting around looking pretty... i had just the right angle and lighting in that pic...

[thirry]

Good job with that opal, smedley! Opals are sooooo hard to shoot well.

Here's something I found while shooting some reference photos of my own stuff. I had never noticed the shape of these rhinestones before -- I must be half blind but I didn't see this before I looked at the photos. Have a look.

[dream*peddler]

Those are really cool rhinestones, thirry!  The only things that ever show up in my pics are hairs !

[*smedley*]

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@thirry wrote:

Good job with that opal, smedley! Opals are sooooo hard to shoot well.

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thanks... as i remember (that pic is at least 10 years old) it took a number of tries to get a good one...

on a different note, i just happened to think of a question that y'all might know the answer to...

is there any market for small stones? mostly diamonds, 1 to 10 points each... i think i have about 60 or 70 points, but i don't have a sensitive enough scale to tell for sure...

[thirry]

Dream, I find hairs too. A lot of them. I swear there's cat hair perpetually floating in the air and it lands on my stuff just as I shoot photos. And then there's crud and verdigris. Sometimes I've found an amazing amount of stuff that I never would have seen otherwise. Irritating as that may be, I'd rather find it myself and take evasive action before a buyer finds it and blows a fuse. Does slow down the listing process a lot though!

Smedley, if I had loose diamonds floating around I'd invest in a basic digital scale first. I think I paid about $10 for one that gives a variety of different measurements. If I was going to be weighing stones all the time I'd go for a 'better' scale, but the inexpensive one works for my limited needs. For a diamond, the weight of the stone is just a starting place. To determine the value of a diamond you'll need someone trained to evaluate it properly (carat weight, cut, clarity, color). The do-it-yourself approach really isn't very effective (unless you're a certified gemologist, but if you were you wouldn't have asked).

To give you a real-life example, my mother gave me a diamond ring someone had given her. The ring has maybe 10 little stones and it's set in 14k. So far, so good. I noticed that it doesn't sparkle very much though, so I took a close look with my trusty loupe. Turns out there's a sandbox full of inclusions in each of those diamonds -- specks that look a lot like pepper. I knew the stones were small to begin with, and with the lack of sparkle I'm guessing the cut isn't all that great. I have absolutely no idea about the color. How those stones would rate on clarity is a guess, but having seen all those hunks of black carbon in the stones I'm betting a certified gemologist would give them a really bad rating. Another guess: they're probably nearly worthless. Your diamonds may be (and I sincerely hope they are!) much better quality than mine. My ten **bleep** diamonds versus ten maybe pretty good diamonds -- a world of difference in value. Good luck!

A.

[thirry]

That bleep wasn't a really offensive word, y'all. I know better. Surprises me sometimes what gets bleeped. Oh well.....

[*smedley*]

i have 2 very good digital scales, one even has a carat scale, but it's sensitivity is .05 carats... IOW, basically it weighs in 20ths of a carat, not points...